OSCE’s democracy and rights arm ODIHR has received an official invitation from the Georgian government to monitor the parliamentary elections and will be sending a needs assessment mission to Georgia to determine long-term observation activities, ODIHR’s spokesman said.

"A decision on the timing of the Needs Assessment Mission has yet to be taken, although it would be tight to complete all of the necessary arrangements before the end of the spring,” Thomas Rymer, ODIHR’s spokesman, told Civil.ge in an email on April 10.

Last week Georgia sent an official invitation to OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and other relevant organizations to deploy long-term election observation mission to monitor the entire electoral campaign in lead up to the October parliamentary elections.

After receiving an invitation from the government of a host country, ODIHR then sends a group of experts, known as needs assessment mission, to determine the scale of a potential observation activity.

Usually OSCE/ODIHR long-term observation missions are deployed six to eight weeks before election day.

“I am not aware of any instance in which long-term observers were deployed at an earlier date, although this determination will be made based on the recommendations by the Needs Assessment Mission,” Rymer said.