“Last year, I participated as an election observer in the election observation mission. I simply want to remind you once again – when on the day after the election at the debriefing all election observers came together and we asked ourselves how the elections were, we determined that the elections were perfectly organised, they were fair, there were no irregularities,” Swiss MP Daniel Fässler stated at the OSCE PA General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions session.

According to Fässler, he was part of the observation mission himself at the 2024 October parliamentary elections.

“I already spoke yesterday regarding Georgia, and this has two reasons. First, the representative of Georgia informed us that no diplomatic relations exist between Georgia and Russia.

This is the reason why Switzerland has a protective mandate and maintains diplomatic relations for Georgia in Russia and for Russia in Georgia. And therefore the situation in Georgia is very important to us.

Last year I participated as an election observer in the election observation mission. I simply want to remind you once again – when on the day after the election at the debriefing all election observers came together and we asked ourselves how the elections were, we determined that the elections were perfectly organized, they were fair, there were no irregularities,” Daniel Fässler stated.

He added that “the result of the elections did not please many European states.”

“The result of the elections did not please many European states. That is not what we have to decide. The Georgian population decided this way.

What was disturbing was the fierce campaign before the elections, the fear campaign of the governing party which probably led to them winning the elections. That is something that must be criticized.

I also want to tell the Georgian representatives – you cannot treat the opposition this way. You must treat the opposition differently. You must strengthen democratic values in Georgia,” the Swiss politician has said.

Daniel Fässler went on to say, explaining the reason for taking the floor.

“We must be careful as OSCE that we do not exclude states. We must integrate. We must ensure that we bring states to the point where they effectively know how to better cultivate the democratic values of the OSCE. And with such proposals we achieve, this is my conviction, rather the opposite. And therefore I regard this proposal as critical,” Daniel Fässler concluded.