Update: Georgian Election Commission Confirms Landslide Win for Saakashvili’s Party; IEOM Calls Vote Imperfect but Improved
By Daniel Hollingsworth
May 23, 2008 | Printer Friendly

The Central Election Commission of Georgia has verified the results of the May 21 Parliamentary election, confirming that the United National Movement of President Mikhail Saakashvili won a major victory with 59.5% of the vote, with the second place party receiving 17.7%.  BBC reports that “Mr. Saakashvili said he was astonished at the support he had received, but pledged to work with the opposition.”  The result was a slight improvement for Saakashvili, and came with far less acrimony, compared to the January Presidential election that gave him a slight majority of 52% amid protests and widespread claims of vote manipulation (see Related CCD Coverage).

A preliminary report by the International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) writes that while “The authorities and other political stakeholders made efforts to conduct these elections in line with OSCE and Council of Europe commitments… [the] International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) identified a number of problems which made this implementation uneven and incomplete.”  The IEOM for the elections in Georgia was a joint undertaking of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR), the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the European Parliament (EP) and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA).

References:

BBC News: Georgian poll landslide confirmed

OECD: International Election Observation Mission Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions, Georgia Parliamentary Elections, 21 May 2008 (PDF)