Rivaling Proposals and the Lack of Coordination in Top Reform Commissions

While the international organizations urge the Georgian government to reform the election system, two independently acting groups in Georgia, which work on improvements to the Election Code, do not show much progress in their activities, thus jeopardizing the upcoming Parliamentary Elections.

Two competing guidelines for the election system reform were elaborated in the consultative groups. The parliamentary inter-faction group proposes one plan, while another one is developed by a sub-commission at the State Chancellery, which includes representatives of political parties, the executive government and non-governmental organizations.

After four months of work, the inter-faction group agreed on several versions of changes to the Election Code, including the issues like voter registration, rights of the election administration and smaller technical issues.

No final consensus was reached on a key topic – the rules of composition of the Central Election Commission (CEC). But the participants of the group agreed in principle, that the CEC should be composed of the political party representatives. This excludes possibility of inclusion of representatives of the non-governmental organizations in the commissions, as it was proposed last year, during the local elections.

Pursuing the recommendations of the monitoring committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe the inter-faction group decided to limit the rights of the election commissions as much as possible. The members of the commission hope this will help to alleviate fears that the party will manipulate results of the elections.

“I think that political parties will not have much [partisan] interest in the commission, which will have only organizational functions and almost no rights,” Gigi Tsereteli, head of the inter-faction group and vice speaker of the Parliament told Civil Georgia.

However, implementation of the inter-faction group proposals is dubious. Representatives of the pro-governmental factions – Citizens Union, Alliance for New Georgia and Tanadgoma – have staged a factual boycott of the group, refusing to show up on the meetings.  Members say it made the consensus building in the group much easier, but now the pro-governmental factions question legitimacy of the group proposals.

The opposition says the government tries to block the discussion on revision of the election code, as it “wants to keep the current, completely useless election code and the Central Election Commission”.

“The government is apparently trying to win the time, but we will do everything to push the reforms through,” Gigi Tsereteli says.

“Their nihilistic attitude towards the inter-faction group could be explained with very low ratings of the Citizens Union and little hopes to win the elections,” Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze said at the Parliament’s Bureau meeting on March 31.

The opposition has no doubts that the government will not give up easily and will use all possibilities to adjust the new Code in such way as to increase own chances of success against the background of extremely low popularity ratings.

The sub-commission at the State Chancellery, which includes representatives of the political parties, NGOs, Interior and Justice Ministries also finds itself in a stalemate. The sub-commission discussed on April 13 President Shevardnadze’s proposal to compose the Central Election Commission with 9 non-political party members. According to the proposal 7 candidatures will be named by the President and two by the authorities of the Adjarian and Abkhazian Autonomous Republics.

The NGO representatives level the toughest opposition to the commission work. Nugzar Kupreishvili of the national election watchdog International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy told Civil Georgia: “Only thing that the sub-commission did was the decision concerning the voters’ lists. I think that the sub-commission limited itself to symbolic recommendations and did not make any significant contribution to the election system reforms. Furthermore, number of suggestions and requests of the non-governmental organizations was neglected by the sub-commission.”

As a result participating NGOs, Liberty Institute, the Georgian Young Lawyers Association and ISFED have stopped cooperation with the commission and decided to act as expert observers.

Activities of the two high-level groups are uncoordinated. Quite often their decisions are contradictory. For example, based on recommendations of the sub-commission the President instructed the Interior Ministry to prepare preliminary lists of voters before June 1. However the similar decision of the inter-faction group, instructing the Interior Ministry to prepare the lists for April 1, overrode President’s decree.

Meanwhile the international organizations say their support in administering the elections will depend on the demonstrated willingness of the government to provide to the feasible plan of action and for the reforms of the electoral system. The Council of Europe and the OSCE, in particular, keep urging the Georgian government to speed up reforms.

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which plans to observe the upcoming vote, sent an early assessment team to Georgia on 1-4 April to review pre-election preparations.

“Preparations for the elections are hampered by the continuing uncertainties regarding the composition of the Central Election Commission,” said Ambassador Christian Strohal, Director of ODIHR. “We therefore call on the [Georgian] Parliament to agree quickly on the new composition of this key body.”

US Ambassador to the OSCE Stephan M. Minikes also called Georgian authorities for hastening reforms. He said, while addressing OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on April 10, “among the immediate needs, we believe it essential that the Government of Georgia promptly establish fair, independent and transparent election administration procedures and prepare accurate voter registers”.

The Georgian authorities are running out of time. The Georgian side must have a new, democratic election code ready for arrival of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) delegation on July 15.

The PACE delegation, which monitors implementation of the commitments undertaken by the Georgian authorities in 1999, while joining the Council of Europe (CoE), gave Georgia time till June to implement its recommendations, which mainly concern reform of the election system; otherwise Georgia’s membership in the CoE could be questioned.

By Nino Khutsidze, Civil Georgia