Ten NGOs granted to Support Fair Local Government Elections

On April 1, 2010 the office of the Open Society Georgia Foundation hosted the presentation of the ten Georgian NGOs who were granted 177 522 USD from the Foundation. Tha grant was pledged for enabling NGOs to engage in the local government elections process to support the conduction of fair local government elections. At the meeting grant recipients  presented their action plans and projects demonstrating how and where they see themselves in the whole process of the elections.

Activites of NGOs will cover Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi, Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti, Kakheti, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kvemo Kartli, Adjara and Ozurgeti, focusing on the following components:

• Improvement of the pre-election environment and prevention of the electoral violations, monitoring of the elections.
• Providing the information to the voters and raising the awareness of the citizens.
• Carrying out monitoring at the “problematic” districts (e.g. integration of ethnic minorities or people with specific needs into the election process and protection of their rights; monitoring of the elections in the military forces)

The projects implemented for the support of the pre-election environment also serve for the monitoring of pre-election and post-election processes in different regions of Georgia. The annual income of the political parties financed from the state budget, the amounts spent for the revision of the election lists and funds received and spent for the pre-election campaigns will also be subject to monitoring.

The component that refers to providing the information to the voters and raising the public awareness mostly means organizing debates on the election themes. International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy  will launch pre-election informational website will be open for public, that has been prepared by the and this will be a constantly active informational portal.  There are some projects that serve for the monitoring of the post-electoral processes, especially for the complaints and vote counting.

The following organizations will be financed:

• Center for Human Rights
• Young Lawyers Association
• International Transparency – Georgia
• Students-Youth Council
• International Center for Civic Culture
• Economic Policy Research Center
• International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy
• Association “Justice and Freedom”
• Youth Club “Dea” (part of the association of women and children with the specific needs)
• Public Movement “Multinational Georgia”