Georgia looks to the future.
Recent elections in Georgia demonstrated that democracy still works in this part of the World. The basicly free and fair contest helps repair Georgia’s international image, which suffered when after November’s clashes between opposition protesters and police Georgian government declared the emergency rule. To really demonstrate its commitment to democratic values Georgia invited large amount of foreign observers to follow the elections. This was very different attitude demostrated by Russia practically blocking foreign observers from its elections. In this context it is specially interesting that namely Russia is only country which declared the Georgian elections un-democratic and rigged. Foreign observers in Georgia had different opoinion. They found several misgivings in elections, but concluded that these were not result of bad will and that elections represented the will of Georgian people.
The opposition has not agreed to this. This is not practical attitude either. The European Union rightly called on the opposition to recognize the results. At the same time, Mr. Saakashvili’s bloc must learn to work with the opposition, and before the parliamentary vote due this spring, address shortcomings that election observers have noted. This is all part of the process called democracy. The time of street policy must be over, time for parliament fights must come. Parliamentary elections held in some months propose for this excellent possibilities. There not accusations against eachother but different programmes and proposals can fight. It is now time for Georgia to look to the future.
I am sorry to say, but you are wrong in your assessment. Those “misgivings” you talk about are grave violations, which normally would mean undemocratic elections. Take a look at the OSCE preliminary report, or even comments by Dieter Boden once more. If you think those violations are unfortunate misgivings, then…
What the EU, NATO and USA do with regard to praising these elections, is simply unethical. It is not their choice who will be the president in Georgia. It is peoples’ choice. Many in Georgia are angry, because what they see is the West supporting an illegitimate president. Do read the preliminary report, and think if you, in your country would agree to such misgivings.
Before stamping the result, it would be plausible to call the Georgian authorities to investigate those violations. Instead, the reaction was “please, try to improve those faults in the future, ok?” There were intentional, planned and shocking instances of fraud.