[7][8] The pre-election period was principally monitored by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) as well as several local watchdogs.

The monitoring mission noted that “the political climate is still dominated by a lack of trust and absence of constructive dialogue between the authorities and the opposition”, one result of this being “the failure of the electoral reform that the authorities and the opposition agreed upon in the aftermath of the November 2007 events.”[9] The amendments to the election code passed by the Parliament in March 2008 took into account recommendations made by the PACE, such as the abolition of additional voters’ lists and voter registration on polling day; lowering of the electoral threshold from 7% to 5%; the simplification and clarification of election-related complaints and appeals procedures; the introduction of party representation in the District Election Commissions.

[11] Another key event, which sent shockwaves across Georgia's political scene on April 21, 2008, was the refusal by Nino Burjanadze, the outgoing parliamentary chairwoman and Saakashvili's ally, to run on the president-led United National Movement (UNM) ticket, citing an absence of consensus within the UNM leadership regarding the party list.

[16] On 22 May 2008, OSCE observers stated that the poll was an improvement from the presidential election held earlier that year, but that it was stilled marred by a number of imperfections.

[18] The United Opposition and the Labour Party announced they would boycott parliament, which held its inaugural session on June 7, 2008, while the Christian Democrats refused to join them.