January 5, 2008 Extraordinary Presidential Elections and Plebiscite Preliminary Report, December 5, 2007

Georgia’s future development greatly depends on fair and democratic conduct of the January 5, 2008 presidential elections and plebiscite. This election is particularly important internally for ensuring the legitimacy and public trust of the winning force in the election and externally for determining the position of the international community, including European and Euro Atlantic structures, towards the country and its democratic commitments. The election process does not begin and end on the election day. The election day is only the middle layer, when voters cast ballots based on the results of observing election subjects during the pre-election campaign and in the period between the elections. After making a choice on election day, the voter is obliged to protect his/her own vote by submitting an appeal to the relevant commission or court if he or she notices a violation of voting procedures or vote counting. Therefore, the legality and democratic nature of the election is assessed not only by the conduct on election day, but by the whole election process. The pre-election campaign period and, in particular, the existence of equal competitive conditions for all election subjects is of particular importance in this assessment. TI Georgia’s project Monitoring the Use of Administrative Resources for the 2008 Extraordinary Presidential Elections aims at revealing those violations and inaccuracies during the pre-election campaign that give an advantage to certain election subjects and thus create problems for fair and objective conduct of the election and ultimately for the democratic development of the country.