President Giorgi Margvelashvili said on Tuesday that pre-election campaign period will formally start from June 8 – four months before the October 8 parliamentary elections.

Formal launch of campaign, according to the election code, implies that from that date number of regulations will be enacted – among them tightening use of administrative resources and doubling salaries for election administration staff.

The President made the announcement after meeting PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili at the presidential palace, which was also attended by Parliament Speaker Davit Usupashvili and Chairperson of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Tamar Zhvania.

Although in early April the President and the PM agreed on election date – October 8, the date of launch of electoral campaign has remained unclear up until now.

On April 6 the President signed a decree setting the election date and sent it to the PM for approval, or as it is called “countersignature”. The decree was specifying that it would have been enacted from August 8, which would have been the date for launch of formal campaign. But legal experts and election monitoring groups pointed out that the decree was legally flawed, because the law required for this presidential decree to be enacted upon its publication immediately after PM’s countersignature, which would have implied launch of campaign in April. As a result the PM refused to sign the decree and asked the President to issue new one by July 8. But the President offered to set early May as the launch of election campaign. At the time he said that his original decree was pre-agreed with the PM; the latter acknowledged that misunderstanding was caused by his office.

Speaking after the meeting with the PM on May 10, President Margvelashvili said that they “managed to reach a consensus” and to agree on a four-month long election campaign period starting from June 8. It implies that the President will issue a new decree and the PM will approve it so that to publish it by June 8.

“It really meets voters’ demands and also gives political parties enough space for pre-election campaigning,” President Margvelashvili said, adding that longer election campaign will hopefully help to reduce number of undecided voters and also contribute to higher voter turnout.