He defends that the president of the country lacks evidence of electoral fraud
Oct. 31 () –
The Georgian Dream government party has accused the European Union this Thursday of using Georgia’s accession process to the community bloc as a “political tool” to direct the country’s future after the elections held last weekend, which have opened the controversy over alleged electoral fraud.
“Everyone should understand that such an approach turns European integration into a political tool, which, unfortunately, ends up damaging the European integration process itself and the reputation of the European Union,” said the President of the Georgian Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, in statements to the press.
In this sense, he has asserted that the statements about the suspension of said process “are unfounded” and has emphasized that European enlargement “cannot be stopped if the European Commission already includes Georgia in its reports and recommendations” in this regard. In this sense, he stressed that this is an attempt by Brussels to “politicize this process to the extreme.”
“While the European Union continues to evaluate Georgia, we also continue to work on the issues provided for in the Association Agreement. This is European integration. It has not stopped and will not stop. If our achievements in these processes have taught us anything, it is that “European integration is a work oriented towards long-term results and not to the political situation of the moment,” he defended.
The European Commission has refused to recommend opening accession talks with Georgia. The country’s score has become one of the worst among the ten current candidates: Turkey, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, North Macedonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Brussels has recalled that, due to the actions of the Georgian Government, the country’s accession process to the EU was “de facto suspended” in the spring, shortly after receiving candidate status as it considers that the authorities have not demonstrated their political commitment to implement the necessary reforms requested by the EU.
WITHOUT EVIDENCE OF FRAUD
On the other hand, Papuashvili has defended that the president of the country, Salomé Zurabishvili, lacks any evidence about the alleged electoral fraud that she has been denouncing together with the Georgian opposition forces since the victory of Georgian Dream in the elections was announced.
Thus, he has asked the president – who defends a more European stance for Georgia – to “admit that she is spreading rumors without providing evidence.” For this reason, he said, it is necessary that evidence also be presented at an international level of the accusations leveled against the current Government from abroad.
“Some foreign colleagues have already told us that Zurabishvili’s destructive actions are evident at the level of foreign policy,” he said before stating that “he has been bothering half the world to say that the country has fallen.”
His words come a day after the Georgian Prosecutor’s Office announced that it had launched an investigation into possible fraud in the parliamentary elections, a measure in response to a request from the Central Election Commission.
However, Zurabishvili has refused for the moment to appear before the investigating body and has indicated that collecting evidence is the task of the Prosecutor’s Office itself. Furthermore, he has regretted that what happened is part of a “political process” and has warned that said investigation is, in reality, directed against him.
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