British Embassy in Georgia announced that it had cancelled all grant plans for the upcoming municipal elections “due to uncertainty with the Georgian authorities.”

According to the statement released on Facebook, the Embassy “regrets the missed opportunity to promote objective, professional and transparent scrutiny of October’s municipal elections.”

“The United Kingdom has tried, in good faith, to seek approval for several grants to Georgian civil society for voter education and citizen electoral monitoring, which the Central Election Commission confirmed are valuable activities.

However, after discussion with the Georgian authorities, we have been told that the planned Government Decree establishing a procedure for grant approvals is not finalised, and therefore, no mechanism or timeframe currently exists for grant approval decisions.

Due to this uncertainty, we have reluctantly had to cancel our grant plans to support the transparency and competitiveness of the upcoming municipal elections.

We regret that, unlike the last municipal election in Georgia, the Government has not yet invited an OSCE / ODIHR monitoring mission, and is not facilitating grants for citizen election monitoring. The absence of professionally trained election monitors working to internationally accepted standards would represent a backwards step that could reduce public confidence in the transparency of the democratic process in Georgia.

The United Kingdom reaffirms its readiness for dialogue on how it can support Georgia’s democratic development and regrets this missed opportunity to promote objective, professional and transparent scrutiny of October’s municipal elections,” reads the statement.