Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Davit Zalkaliani said that Georgia has sent formal invitations to relevant international organizations to monitor the October 27 presidential elections.

“We have sent formal invitations to all main election observation missions with indicating the date of elections,” Zalkaliani said.

He said that invitations have been sent to OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR); Council of Europe; GUAM; OSCE; Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe and NATO.

“We have already received a confirmation that the OSCE mission, which formally is the main international observation mission, will monitor the elections,” Zalkaliani said.

OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) deploys its observation mission upon the invitation from the government of host country. The next step is to send to a host country a group of experts, known as needs assessment mission, to determine the scale of a potential observation activity. Usually long-term observation missions are deployed six to eight weeks before election day.

In his televised statement on July 10 Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili called on international organizations “to involve as many qualified observers in election monitoring process as possible.”