Final Consultations Over CEC

(Tbilisi, July 23, 2003, Civil Georgia) – Today the leaders of the Parliamentary factions meet to elaborate the final version of the rule of composition of the Central Election Commission (CEC), based on the US-suggested election guidelines.

Two factions ? the Revival and the Industrialists demand four and two seats in the CEC respectively, while other seven opposition parties want to distribute nine seats among the nine opposition parties equally.

At the Parliamentary special session on July 22 the MPs failed to vote for the election code because of the disagreement over the CEC.

Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze expressed fear that in case the election code is not adopted in the nearest days, it will have no sense to adopt a new code at all, because ?little time has been left before the Parliamentary elections,? scheduled for November 2.

On July 22 MPs agreed that today?s consultations would be the last one and even in case of disagreement the Parliament would vote over the CEC on July 23.