Ruling Party Focuses on Social Problems in Election Platform

National Movement-Democrats vow to slightly increase pensions, repay debts. But experts ask: how?

The ruling party of National Movement-Democrats, led by President Saakashvili presented an election platform on March 9 prevailed by addressing social problems. However, experts say there are too much promises and less indications on how the authorities intend to keep these promises in their election program. The Elections Media Center launched a series of presentations of the political parties’ election platforms on March 9 by presenting the pre-election proposals of the ruling party.

“Improvement of social welfare and conditions are of vital importance for our population. That is why our platform mainly addresses the social issues along with other problems,” Maia Nadiradze, who became a leading member of the ruling party, after she was assigned as number one in the National Movement-Democrats party-list of MP candidates.

A 24-page platform for the years of 2004-2009 mainly represents a program of the new government, which was approved by the Parliament in February together with the cabinet and the Prime Minister.

Maia Nadiradze and Mikheil Machavariani, another leading member of the ruling party, said at the presentation that the authorities will carry out drastic reforms in all sectors of the country, aiming at tackling corruption, strengthening transparency and public monitoring in the governance.

“For this purpose we should significantly improve the investment environment and facilitate the development of small and medium business. The authorities should manage to create the favorable investment environment,” Mikheil Machavariani said. 

According to the ruling party’s program, the authorities will increase pensions from GEL 14 (around USD 7) up to GEL 20 (around USD 10) from April, right after the March 28 parliamentary elections.

The National Movement – Democrats vows to cover the GEL 18 million (around USD 9m) backlog on pensions and the GEL 8 million (around USD 4m) backlog on health care and social programs by the end of this year. The authorities also pledge to cover the total arrears on allowances for internally displaced persons.

Despite socially-focused election platform the ruling party defies its early promises regarding increase of minimal salaries to the subsistence level – GEL 115 (around USD 60,5) per month.
 
The draft law regarding this proposal was submitted to the Parliament during the Shevardnadze’s presidency in early 2003 by the United Democrats party, led by Zurab Zhvania, who is the Prime Minister at the moment.

By then opposition party United Democrats managed to pass the draft in the Parliament; however ex-President Shevardnadze vetoed the law. Zurab Zhvania and his party vowed to implement the proposal and increase minimal salaries up to GEL 115 in case taking over the power. The issue became a cornerstone of the election campaign of the United Democrats on the eve of the last year’s parliamentary elections.

Economic expert Revaz Sakevarishvili, who also attended the presentation of the ruling party’s election platform, said “when Zhvania first pushed the issue [over minimal salaries], the situation in the country’s economy was much worse, than now.”
 
“However, there are no indications in the ruling party’s platform that the authorities intend to fulfill demands pushed while being in the opposition,” the expert added.
 
In February Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania said that the government would propose a schedule of increase of minimal salary to the subsistence level in June.
 
The ruling party’s program also focuses on restoration of Georgia’s territorial integrity through peaceful negotiations.
 
“This [Abkhaz conflict] was a political conflict, and not ethnic. We do not share the opinions that the key of the Abkhaz conflict resolution lies in Russia. Everything depends on us,” Maia Nadiradze said.
 
In country’s foreign policy priorities the ruling party underlines necessity of Georgia’s integration into Euro-Atlantic structures, as well as improvement of ties with Russia and further boosting of cooperation with the United States.  
 
Davit Losaberidze of the think-tank NGO Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development said after the presentation that the election platform of the authorities lacks proposals over the territorial-administrative arrangement of the country.
 
“The priorities represented in the program should be implemented by all means. These priorities would be approved by any political force. But the thing is that the program does not reflect the ways of implementation of these goals. How the authorities intend to keep their promises – this is more interesting and important,” Revaz Sakevarishvili told Civil Georgia.