- ‘We need competitive, but also uneventful elections’;
- ‘We are first govt since Georgia’s independence that is not feared’;
- ‘Civil society organizations and media have real power’;
- ‘We surpassed Europe’s expectations of democratic consolidation’;
- EU visa liberalisation proofs ‘it pays to be pro-European’;
- Govt working on ‘reconciliation roadmap’ with breakaway regions;
- ‘One can say we have political prisoners, but I would say we have rule of law’
Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikasvhili addressing Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe in Strasbourg, April 21, 2016. Photo: PM’s office
PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili addressed Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) on April 21 and said Georgia is the proof that reforms work.
In his speech and also during the question and answer session with lawmakers from the Council of Europe’s member states, Kvirikashvili stressed government’s “strong determination to hold one of the best, free and fair elections in the history of Georgia” in October of this year.
“We need competitive, but also uneventful elections, of the kind in which accounts are not frozen, no one controls what kind of news people watch… Elections in 2016 would be the most transparent, fair,” he said. “We are moving away from democratic transition to democratic consolidation where winner does not take all and loser does not lose all. And we are proud of that.”
Responding to PACE members’ questions, many of which focused on upcoming elections, the PM said that he engaged in dialogue with the opposition parties shortly after taking office, refereeing to his meetings with non-parliamentary opposition parties. He said that he aims at “decreasing temperature and confrontation and increasing cooperative spirit” in the lead up to the elections.
He said that few days ago the government proposed to opposition to lower threshold required for a party to clear in order to endorse its members to the Parliament. Lowering of this electoral threshold from 5% to 4% is part of the GD coalition-proposed constitutional amendment, which envisages applying of lower threshold not in the upcoming elections, but for the post-2016 parliamentary elections.
The PM also said that the government is offering the political parties to lower electoral threshold for the parties to become eligible for state funding. According existing regulations state funding is currently allocated to “qualified political parties” – those, which have won at least 3% of the vote in the most recent parliamentary and local elections.
But the main demand of the opposition parties is scrapping majoritarian component of the electoral system for the upcoming elections, which is opposed by the ruling party Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia, which PM Kvirikashvili is expected to chair from this May.
A constitutional amendment, proposed by the GD ruling coalition, envisages scrapping of the majoritarian system for the post-2016 elections, scheduled for 2020.
Kvirikashvili told members of the PACE: “There is an agreement between the ruling party and the opposition parties that in 2020 there will be a change of the majoritarian system. But six months before the elections it will be very difficult to re-adjust the electoral system.”
There is no such agreement with opposition parties, which continue insisting on scrapping the majoritarian component of the system immediately, which requires a lengthy process of constitutional amendment. An alternative proposal of the opposition parties is to avoid a constitutional changes and to keep the majoritarian component, but to reform the system in a way that will rule out mismatch between votes received by a party in party-list contest and number of seats won by the same party in the Parliament – such a mismatch is possible in Georgia’s mixed electoral system, wherein 73 MPs are elected in single-mandate constituencies, who are called majoritarian MPs, and rest of the 77 seats in the Parliament are allocated through party-list, proportional system to those parties, which clear 5% threshold.
When asking a question on elections, Greek MP Ioanneta Kavvadia told the Georgian PM that “no positive changes have been introduced” in the electoral legislation and said that the Venice Commission, Council of Europe’s advisory body for legal affairs, gave in March “rather negative assessment” of the changes in the election code – a reference to electoral redistricting. The Venice Commission hailed these changes as an “important step forward” to hold elections respecting the principle of equal suffrage; it, however, noted that the process of drafting redistricting bill lacked transparency and broad engagement with stakeholders. The EU has also welcomed those changes, which it said, “aimed at ensuring equality of suffrage.”
‘We Surpassed Europe’s Expectations’
In his speech the PM said that Georgia now has “experience in the successful implementation of reforms.”
“We have delivered Europe to Georgians; and we have surpassed Europe’s expectations of democratic consolidation and democratization,” he said.
He said that scrutiny of implementation of reforms by stakeholders “keeps everyone on their toes” and “abiding European standards is an obligation that has now become a habit” in Georgia.
“The cumulative result of reforms, year on year, is that citizens, civil society organizations, and media have real power,” he said.
“We are the first government since Georgia’s independence that is not feared. And perhaps that is the achievement we are more proud of, although shamed by the fact that rule of law cannot be extended to the occupied territories,” Kvirikashvili said.
He also highlighted Georgia’s implementation of all the necessary reforms required for receiving visa-free travel in the Schengen area, which Tbilisi expects to be finalized in coming months. European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) was scheduled to discuss European Commission’s legislative proposal to allow visa-free travel for Georgian citizens at a meeting on April 21, but it was postponed upon the request of rapporteur MEP Mariya Gabriel, for April 25.
Kvirikashvili also noted important role of visa-free travel with the EU in respect of reaching out to residents of breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“After years of reforms and sacrifices, Tbilisi will turn to its citizens in the occupied territories with the solid proof that it pays to be pro-European and we will be able to say: ‘Join us; study, work and flourish with us’,” the PM said.
“We are the proof that democracy promotion, institution building, civic empowerment, conditionality, and reforms work,” he said.
‘Reconciliation Roadmap’
PM Kvirikashvili said that “the occupied regions” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are “one of the biggest challenges” of the government and added that “people residing within the occupied regions and in the adjacent areas are deprived of their fundamental rights and freedoms.”
“We are also greatly concerned by the plan of Tskhinvali/South Ossetia’s de facto authorities to hold a referendum on joining the Russian Federation. Such illegal developments would not only undermine Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, but would have potentially dire consequences in an already fragile South Caucasus region,” he said.
Responding to a question on government’s reconciliation efforts with the breakaway regions, Kvirikashvili said that confidence building is “the highest priority.”
“Unfortunately trust was lost; first of all we need to rebuild this lost trust,” he said, adding that government is extending state-funded healthcare and education programs to the residents of the breakaway regions.
He also said without elaborating details, that the government is working on “reconciliation roadmap”.
“This is a very sensitive issue… and we need to consolidate consensus within the Georgian society itself. We are working very actively towards that and we will launch probably this roadmap in the very near future,” the PM said.
On ties with Moscow, the PM said: “We seek to break the deadlock in Russian-Georgian relations by pursuing pragmatic policies.”
“These policies include taking steps to restore relations in trade, transport, humanitarian and other fields. But our efforts to normalize relations with Moscow are insufficient without due respect to our independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Kvirikashvili said.
‘Massive Pro-European Information Campaign’
Estonian MP Andres Herkel from the EPP group asked PM Kvirikashvili about “strong Russian impact on media landscape in Georgia” and also told the PM, citing a report from the Council of Europe’s human rights body, European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), that the Georgian government was supporting “xenophobic media” through awarding them advertisement contracts. He also asked the PM if his government will have “a better cooperation with pro-European opposition, including UNM.”
Kvirikashvili responded that the government launched a “massive information campaign” to promote “European values”.
“This is the way to respond anti-EU propaganda,” the PM said.
“I would not say that there is any financing of xenophobic media. This is something that [might] be perception of some of our opposition members; I can say that opposition TV channels are financed much more intensively from the state budget. We cannot block any media source,” he added.
Asked by Lithuanian MP Emanuelis Zingeris of the EPP group about several Stalin statues still existing in number of locations in Georgia, the PM responded: “I don’t think Stalin can ever become important in the agenda of Georgia’s politics or social life… I don’t think we should take this case seriously because no one in Georgia has any sympathy for Stalin period.”
‘Restoration of Justice’
Asked by Portuguese MP Duarte Marques of the EPP group about “political prisoners”, referring to those senior officials from the previous government who now are serving prison terms on various criminal charges they deny as politically motivated, Kvirikashvili responded: “I would call it high-profile prosecution cases.”
“One of the biggest challenges faced by the Georgian government is dealing with the legacy of criminal activity by former officials of the previous government,” he said and added that “20,000 complaints” were filed with the prosecutor’s office after the change of government in late 2012 about “past abuses.”
“I am a person who has never shied away from admitting the positive legacy of the previous administration, but we should also admit that starting from 2007 life in Georgia became a nightmare for most of the population of Georgia. One can say that we have political prisoners, but I would say that we have a rule of law and no one in Georgia is above the justice,” he said.
The PM alluded to this issue in his speech too. “This government believes that confidence in rule of law requires not only reforms, but also restorative justice,” said Kvirikashvili, who made his address in English; judging from the context and also from the official Georgian translation of his address, distributed by his office, the PM was meaning “restoration of justice.”
“We want to make Georgia a better place to live for the citizens, and not to show off. In the history of democracy there has never been restorative justice without controversy; the balance between restoration and lustration is thin and criticism [is] inevitable. We want unity, but not at the expanse of justice; we want justice, but not at the expanse of unity. This is the essence of our Gordian knot, but we will not cut through this knot with silence… We must unloose this knot,” he said.
Asked by Georgian lawmaker from the opposition Free Democrats party, Irakli Chikovani, if he is “satisfied” with the judicial reform, especially in the view of re-appointment of a controversial judge in late December, the PM responded: “No one can be self-satisfied with the level of reform, but everything is comparable.”
“If we compare existing court system to the system that existed four years ago, we can say that there is a very clear progress,” Kvirikashvili said. “Of course there are judges, that were part of the previous system, but imagine allegations from the opposition if we had cleared the system from all the judges, who were part of the previous system. We are not doing that. The system is not perfect, but we are moving ahead with our reforms.”
Asked about Rustavi 2 TV ownership dispute, which is currently adjudicated in the court of appeals, the PM said that government cannot interfere in ownership matter and added that he would like to see Rustavi 2 TV keeping its sharp reporting and criticism of the government’s policies, especially ahead of the elections, and “not to give a chance to our opposition to speculate on this issue.”
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)