President Saakashvili signed a decree on August 26 setting date of the local self-governance elections for October 5, 2006, according to a press release posted on the Georgian President’s official web-site late on August 27.

“The President of Georgia has decided to hold local elections on October 5 after consultations with the Parliamentary Chairperson [Nino Burjanadze] and after taking into consideration the positions of various political organizations. These will be the first elections ever in Georgia’s history where residents of each district and town will elect the local government themselves ,” the press release reads.

The Georgian authorities are willing to invite a large number of international observers, “and call on Georgian society for activeness in order to provide maximum transparency and democracy with the elections.”

While two different tentative dates had been announced earlier, the most recent date is officially set by the president's decree.

In early August chief of the President’s Administration Giorgi Arveladze announced that the elections would be held in early December – a date that was slightly later than the one announced by the President this April, when he said that “local elections will be held in, or around, November.”