The awareness raising and training course for law enforcement officers was launched under the Memorandum of Cooperation of September 27, 2018 between the Center of Electoral Systems Development, Reforms, and Training and the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia.

Giorgi Sharabidze, Deputy CEC Chair, and Natia Zaalishvili, Training Center Director, opened the event on October 8. They underscored the importance of effective communication between the Election Administration and law enforcement authorities for ensuring safe and peaceful environment during the voting process.

Representatives of the Training Center, the Academy of the MIA and International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) acquainted heads of structural units of law enforcement authorities participating in the meeting with the following important topics:

• The concept of electoral security and international standards;
• Identify security related risks in the course of voting at polling stations;
• Prevention of risks and effective communication between the Election Administration and law enforcement authorities;
• Response mechanisms for ensuring safe and peaceful electoral environment;
• MIA role in ensuring that the elections are held in free and secure environment;
• Guidance for the MIA officers during the elections period (According to the Police Code of Ethics);
• Description of violations detected during the pre-election period and during elections and procedural norms for responding to those (administrative-legal and criminal).

Awareness raising and training meetings with representatives of law enforcement authorities are held at the MIA Academy during October 8-18.

As part of the Memorandum, the Training Center has also developed for police officers a distant training program that serves as an additional resource for gainig information around electoral security. The program can be found on the MIA Academy Electronic Training Portal and the Training Center web-site (available in Georgian).