Georgian speaker: OSCE/ODIHR joined 2008 vote despite late invitation

The Georgian Parliament Speaker, Shalva Papuashvili, on Monday cast doubt on the reasons given by the OSCE/ODIHR for refusing to observe Georgia's upcoming local elections, calling the explanation "hard to believe," Report informs via GPB.

"This is another example of the hypocrisy we see from abroad. The letter is a document - they cannot hide the dates. They claim they didn't have time, yet we had a month of election campaigning in September. How hard would it have been to gather a few people and bring them to Georgia? The reasons they give are hard to believe: they received an invitation a month before the 2008 presidential election and came. Their current excuses are transparently false. Georgian society should remember this," Papuashvili said.

"As for the embassies that now remain silent: if they fail to speak up, then the day after the elections, some will claim the vote was not inclusive," he stressed.