Ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections, the Georgian Dream party reached the maximum level of its years-long consolidation of power as manifested through the complete capture of state institutions. All types of administrative resources – coercive, regulatory, institutional, financial, and media – were used for the elections to ensure the ruling party’s victory. During the parliamentary elections, four of the five fundamental principles of democratic elections – universal suffrage, free voting, equality, and secrecy of vote – were essentially violated. The combination of fundamental violations identified during the pre-election period and on Election Day, the use of systematic and organized schemes of voter intimidation, pressure, threats, and vote buying, affected the expression of the free will of the voters and, consequently, the election results cannot be considered as a true expression of the will of the Georgian voters.

The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) monitored the election period with the financial support of the European Union, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the British Government, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). The views expressed in the document are those of ISFED only and may not necessarily reflect the views of any donor organization.