According to the observations of the Democracy Research Center, the scale of the violations detected during the pre-election period and on the election day casts doubt on the fairness and legitimacy of the elections.

The Democracy Research Center has been monitoring the pre-election environment since the official announcement of the 2024 parliamentary elections. However, the report also reviews important events that occurred both before the start of the election campaign and after the election day.

The observation revealed the following:

• Political polarization particularly intensified during the pre-election period, which was largely caused by the anti-European statements made by the representatives of Georgian Dream, the adoption of the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence (the so-called Russian law), and the pre-election “promise” of the ruling party to ban opposition parties after the elections.
• Over the past two years, pseudo-religious-national sentiments have become so strong in the Georgian Dream rhetoric that the ruling party has completely occupied the niche of the previously sharply pro-Russian far-right wing.
• The ruling team also tried to win over the Orthodox Church and its parishioners by transferring state property and budget funds to the Patriarchate. After the official start of the pre-election period, by the decrees of the Government of Georgia, non-agricultural land plots and buildings located on them were transferred to the Patriarchate of Georgia for GEL 1.
• The analysis of several legislative acts adopted after the election day reveals that the purpose of their adoption was to gain the favour of a wide group of voters during the pre-election period.
• Compared to 2023, approximately 47 thousand more people received subsistence assistance in 2024. As of September 2024, the number of assistance recipients reached a record number – 682 739 people, which is also a record - 18.5% of the population of Georgia.
• In 2024, the number of employees hired under contracts in the offices of municipal councils increased by 8.2%. Accordingly, as a result of the overall increase in staff and salaries in the municipal offices, the total payroll increased by 16.5% across the country (except for Tbilisi).
• In 2024, the Tbilisi City Assembly office, despite the reduction in the number of staff, increased its payroll by almost 10%.
• In 2024, compared to the previous year, the total payroll fund of municipal non-commercial legal entities increased by approximately 17%, and the number of jobs by 4.2%.
• Since August 2024, the launch/implementation of state/local self-government projects/programmes became intensive, which should be considered the use of administrative resources for electoral purposes.
• The programmes/initiatives initiated during the reporting period were mainly aimed at young people. Often, some of the programmes/initiatives provided for financial benefits, which in turn contained signs of voter bribery.
• A few days before the official start of the pre-election period, the Georgian Government transferred GEL 1 082 961, left over in the state budget for years, to eight municipalities for the implementation of infrastructure projects.
• With the approach of the parliamentary elections, cases of violent disruption of the election campaigns of opposition parties became more frequent. The report reviews 30 cases of violence that occurred before the elections and on the election day.
• In August 2024, school principals and one of the heads of the resource center were dismissed, allegedly on political grounds.
• School and kindergarten teachers and medical staff were repeatedly taken to party events on the orders of their superiors. There were also cases of school teachers participating in party events during working hours, which is a violation of the law.
• During the reporting period, delegates of the ruling party participated in the events funded by the municipality, which blurs the line between the State and the ruling party and puts election subjects in an unequal position.
• The election day of the October 26 parliamentary elections took place against the backdrop of serious violations, which called into question the legitimacy of the election results.
• The total funding received by five political parties during the pre-election period exceeded GEL 39 million, of which more than GEL 16 million was donated to Georgian Dream.