Washington: Georgian Public defender Levan Ioselian who is on an official visit to the United States of America has met Stevan B and Holly Donaldson. Stevan is the European director of IRI (International Republican Institute) whereas Holly Donaldson is the program director of NDI (National Democratic Institute).
The two officials from the Georgia Public Defender Office are on a working visit to the United States of America. They have met with many top officials of the USA to discuss multiple issues of common importance. The main topic of discussion during the visit was the upcoming election of the Georgian Parliament. According to government officials the election for the Georgian Parliament will be held on October 26.
On this occasion the Public Defender talked about the office’s activities regarding the elections and underlined that he is ready within the mandate to provide assistance to the observation missions of IRI and NDI, which have been actively monitoring the pre-election campaign and the election process in Georgia for years.
At the same time the public defender also spoke about the frequent use of hate speech before the elections and the statement prepared in this direction in cooperation with the Central Election Commission of Georgia. Similarly an introductory meeting was held with the representative of the Congressional Research Center a specialist in Russian and European issues Corey Welt.
It is worth noting that the public defender’s office has a great responsibility to conduct transparent and fair elections in Georgia. The office also has the responsibility to ensure that the ruling party does not misuse its authority to manipulate election results. Both sides further discussed the effects of the adoption of the foreign agents law. This law was adopted by the Georgian Parliament despite the president’s veto.
Notably there was a large-scale controversy around the adoption of the foreign agent’s law. The capital city Tbilisi as well as many other cities across the entire country witnessed protests against the law. Many countries including the USA criticised police action against the protestors.
