The US Embassy has released a statement regarding the changes to the Georgian Electoral Code and the legislation regarding campaign financing. DF Watch publishes it unchanged:

“The United States supports free, fair and reliable elections in Georgia. Our attention is focused on the electoral process. We do not support any specific party or candidate. In this spirit, the US embassy carefully learned the amendments regarding the election campaign and political party financing into the electoral code and the law about the political associations, which parliament approved this week.

We think that many amendments will support to create a competitive electoral environment along with the successful steps taken to eradicate the real or imaginary errors in the electoral lists before the parliamentary elections in 2012.

We regret that an agreement wasn’t achieved regarding part of the new election code, which cast away the suspicions regarding unequalness in the electoral system.

We fear that retroactive usage of the regulation regarding party financing will make the political competition even more unequal. Building democracy is a permanent process.

We call for the Georgian government to continue working with the opposition parties and the civil society so that the 2012 elections could be free, fair and gain the public trust.

The United States will continue supporting the Georgian government, political parties, civil society and the Georgian people’s efforts to further strengthen democratic institutions and democratic processes in Georgia.”