A study based on public sources has revealed that 53 out of 102 local observer organizations registered with the Central Election Commission (CEC) – more than half at 52% – are engaged in activities opposing the Georgian Dream party, Givi Mikanadze, a member of the parliamentary majority, stated during a briefing.

Mikanadze presented information to media representatives about observer organizations registered with the CEC that were found to have connections with political entities and were allegedly conducting activities against the Georgian Dream.

“One month ago, on September 27, our interim briefing on the same issue identified 19 organizations directly linked to the opposition and seven local observer organizations acting against the Georgian Dream out of 49 registered organizations,” Mikanadze stated.

He noted that one observer organization, the Center for Law and Equality, which was affiliated with the National Movement and the Ahali party, had its registration revoked by the CEC following their interim report presentation, based on the organization’s own request.

Following the September 25 interim report, an additional 53 local observer organizations registered with the CEC. The Georgian Dream conducted monitoring based on open sources to determine these organizations’ connections with political entities. The research methodology examined public connections between the founders, board members, and executive representatives of registered local observer organizations with political entities, expressed through party membership and/or statements and donations made in their favour.

“The identification of biased observer organizations was based on their anti-government propaganda in public spaces and/or their reluctance to reflect numerous pre-election violations against Georgian Dream in their interim reports,” Mikanadze explained.

According to his statement, the study found that out of 102 organizations registered with the CEC, 37 organizations are directly connected to political parties – essentially every third organization, or 36%, is directly affiliated with political parties.

“The monitoring also established that 16 organizations are conducting campaigns against the ruling party, Georgian Dream, which is evidenced by their reports and public activities – we’re talking about 16% of registered organizations,” Mikanadze said.

He then provided specific examples of several organizations identified in the study, including “Critical Citizen,” “Youth Initiative for Future Georgia,” “Alternative NGO,” and “Public Opinion Research Center,” detailing their leadership’s connections to opposition parties, particularly the United National Movement.

Mikanadze revealed that these four organizations were part of a unified scheme, evidenced by the fact that the same authorized person, Ushangi Mikeladze, an active supporter of the United National Movement, applied to the Public Registry National Agency to prepare extracts for all four organizations.

The MP also highlighted concerns about other organizations, including the “Georgian Order” and connections between various observer groups and opposition parties. He noted that 27 representatives of NGOs donated nearly GEL 800,000 to opposition political parties between 2015-2024.

“It’s evident that the monitoring of elections by these identified organizations will be biased and have nothing to do with objectivity,” Mikanadze concluded.

He called on international observer missions to reflect this evidence-based information in their reports and disregard subjective information from these organizations.

The detailed report on all identified organizations will be available on Georgian Dream’s official Facebook page and will be sent to international partners today, Mikanadze announced.