Tamar Chugoshvili on Georgian Presidential Elections Campaign

The parliamentary delegation of Georgia, led by the First Deputy Chairman of Parliament, Tamar Chugoshvili, is attending the Winter Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg. Debates about the Georgia’s recent presidential elections will take place later today.

The First Deputy Chairman of the Parliament addressed the audience, expressing her gratitude to the members of the Assembly for observing the elections and offering their recommendations, which, she said, "Georgia will take into consideration in future." Chugoshvili strongly emphasized the importance of these elections, with the country chosing its first female president.

While delivering the speech, the government official stated that the election campaign was full of hatred towards the presidential candidate and the worst forms of insult were used by the partner of the European People’s Party towards the female candidate.

“Despite the positive outcome of the elections, we learned some lessons in the process and saw some sad dynamics. Unfortunately, this campaign was full of hatred. It was full of insult and harassment against female candidate Salome Zurabishvili.

"This week, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe started a campaign against harassment. We watched a video about what women are going through in politics. The worst forms of harassment were used by the opposition, which is the partner of the European People’s Party (EPP). I would like to ask my colleagues from the EPP to please pay attention to how your partner party treated the female candidate, how the media owned by your partner party treated the female candidate. The level of hate speech, harassment and insult were unimaginable,” the head of the Permanent Delegation of the Parliament of Georgia said.

By Ketevan Kvaratskheliya

Image source: IPN