Election Commission’s Painful Departure

Commission to go, but no consensus on its new composition so far

As the 2003 parliamentary elections approach, agreement tends to shape on the necessity of changing the current Central Election Commission (CEC). However, logrolling persists regarding the composition of the new CEC.

Pro-presidential Citizens Union (CUG) put a last nail in CEC coffin by proposing to disband the commission at its nearest session. But the opposition, which was consistently demanding removal of the CEC, meets the new proposals with some suspicion.

CEC was harshly criticized for mismanagement of the local elections on June 2, 2002, when the basic needs of the election process – such as the accurate voter lists, education of the precinct commission members – were not met.

Political parties, eying the tense pre-election battle for the parliamentary elections in fall 2003, agree the CEC membership should go. Interestingly, pro-presidential CUG leads the way.

“Today’s CEC is a symbol of unfair elections. Therefore the Citizens Union party demands suspension of its authority and introduction of new rules of its composition,” MP Irakli Gogava, one of the CUG leaders, told Civil Georgia.

Notably, it was the CUG, than a ruling party, which has shaped the current rules of the CEC composition in 1995-99 and was the largest supplier of its members, including the chairman. But the political landscape has changed drastically since.

“The current election system was not designed by [State Minister and CUG leader, Avtandil] Jorbenadze. Hence he does not have much influence over CEC and does not know all of its details either. Jorbenadze fears that during the elections, CEC will not work in his favor and wants do disassemble it and create a new commission, which would be under his control,” Zurab Chiaberashvili of election watchdog NGO International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) tells Civil Georgia.

Indeed, since 1999, most of the CUG leaders have left the party to join the opposition forces. Today, it looks like those leaders, like Mikheil Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania would have good chances of making it into the 2003 parliament, while the CUG failed to clear 4% threshold in 2002 local elections in a capital city.

Current CEC should have 18 members. But two of them have stepped down and one died, so there are only 15 members left. The Parliament and the President have 5 members each in the commission. 6 members are from the parties, which have succeeded in the previous elections and two members are from the Adjarian and Abkhazian autonomous republics.

The Citizens Union proposes several systems of re-composition for the review of the colleagues. One is to stick to the partisan composition mechanism, but re-shuffle the seats, another is to have a professional CEC, composed of the judges and/or lawyers, the third is to have a “civil” CEC based on representation from the NGOs, and fourth is a mixed scheme, where part of the representatives are the party members, part are appointed by the president and by the heads of the autonomies.

In April 2002 the already Parliament discussed a new draft law on elections, prepared by the inter-faction group, which considered composition of CEC by members of the parties that have cleared the 4% barrier in the last 2 parliamentary and local self-governance elections. The Parliament adopted the draft law in the first hearing. However, disagreement on the rules of composition of the district and local level election commissions delayed its final adoption.

Two years before a preliminary compromise was made among the parties on composing the CEC from the civil society organizations, but it failed to materialize. “Never before CEC was so extremely politicized as it is now. I think that enforcement of the decision, adopted in 2000, would have ended those continuous and meaningless argues that have turned CEC sessions into a show,” Khatuna Gogorishvili, member of the CEC, the United Democrats opposition party and head of the Parliament’s apparatus, told Civil Georgia.

The Democracy Coalition formed by the seven Georgian NGOs actively pushes the authorities to reform the entire election system. On January 11 representatives of the Democratic Coalition met with State Minister Avtandil Jorbenadze and agreed to form a working group, which would draft the provisions of the reform.

The Democratic Coalition also supports the idea of dismissing the current CEC.  Zurab Chiaberashvili, member of the Democrat Coalition says that the working group, which will be composed by the representatives of the government and NGOs, will work out the proposals concerning the composition of the new CEC. However, there is no consensus among NGOs on the best procedure of composition for the CEC either.

Observers say there is a risk that the CEC would be disbanded, and heavily split partisan forces would fail to find a compromise on the new composition of the commission. In such case, the elections of 2003 would be endangered.

Meanwhile the hopes hinge on NGOs, the government and the political parties finding a recipe for successful, free and fair elections.

by Goga Chanadiri