EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Georgia: Parliamentary Speaker Withdraws from May Election

EURASIA INSIGHT

GEORGIA: PARLIAMENTARY SPEAKER WITHDRAWS FROM MAY ELECTION
Molly Corso 4/21/08

This article was updated on May 22 to correct a quote translation.

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Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burjanadze, a leader of the 2003 Rose Revolution, shocked Georgia’s political world with an April 21 announcement that she will not run for reelection in the upcoming May legislative elections. Burjanadze’s apparent exit from the political stage comes amid heightened public distrust in the election process.

During a televised briefing at which she had been expected to announce the governing party’s final list of candidates for the election, Burjanadze instead revealed that disagreement over the candidates had prompted her decision to leave. "[I]t was not possible to reach a consensus over the National Movement’s party list. I think this is not a tragedy; it is not a pleasant fact, but it is not either a tragedy. It can happen in any democratic state," she said, according to an English-language translation of her remarks posted on the news bulletin service Civil Georgia.

Burjanadze, who has served as parliamentary chairperson since 2001, had been expected to head the National Movement’s list of candidates. In recent weeks, though, Georgian print media have speculated openly about what her political future could hold. Failure to broker an agreement between the opposition and government following the contentious January 5 presidential vote is widely seen as having wounded her politically. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Burjanadze stressed that she has no plans to join the opposition. "[A] difference in positions does not mean [government] weakness and it does not mean a crack in [government] unity. � The country, she affirmed, "is developing in the right direction."

Calling for a makeover of the "political team" before the elections, though, she went on to add that "political processes in the country need to be amended, and mistakes of the authorities should be addressed immediately," though noted that such corrections have already begun "to a certain extent." She declined to elaborate.

Responding to Burjanadze’s decision, President Mikheil Saakashvili expressed dissatisfaction, characterizing his longtime political ally as "a Georgian patriot." Saakashvili stated that Burjanadze’s departure from politics would only be "for a time." The parliamentary speaker herself, however, did not indicate that any return is planned, stating only that she will hold her post until a new speaker is elected.

The controversy surrounding Burjanadze may heighten concern about the upcoming election. Allegations of irregularities have already popped up. For example, a representative of one international election monitoring organization -- the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) -- notes that while it is "obvious" that the Central Election Commission is trying to organize a fair election, some regional government officials in the mountainous eastern region of Racha are not permitting local election commissions to work independently.

"We are monitoring the activities of the electrical administration," said ISFED program manager Eka Siradze-Delaunay. "The tendency at the moment is that at the local level, local authorities are interfering in the work of the election administration. The election administration should be given the opportunity to conduct the elections independently, by themselves."

In an April 21 interview with EurasiaNet, Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairman Levan Tarkhnishvili expressed frustration with the problems. "It is a working process," Tarkhnishvili said. "I cannot say it is a very usual thing, but you can imagine that we have more than 3,700 PCs [precinct commissions]. So somewhere there can be some problem -- not because someone tells someone to create the problem, but because sometimes people are not so wise."

Signs of similar confusion have also surfaced in a controversy with the opposition Republican Party over voter lists in the capital, Tbilisi. Earlier in April, before the voter list was published officially, the Republican Party accused the CEC of inventing nine apartment buildings in the Tbilisi suburb of Isani to sneak in extra voters onto the list.

According to Vakhtang Khmaladze, the Republican Party’s candidate for the district, the phantom apartment buildings also turned up during the presidential election in January. When the party complained to the CEC in December about the addresses, they were told that since the addresses were noted on voters’ ID cards, the CEC must allow the votes, he told EurasiaNet.

In response, CEC Chairman Tarkhnishvili stated that responsibility for checking the accuracy of voter addresses does not fall to the CEC. Data for the voter lists is transferred to the CEC from the civil registry, he continued. "Additional documentation" is sometimes requested to check names, but not addresses.

On April 14, the commission announced that there are 3,473,190 registered voters � a decrease of over 54,700 from the January tally of 3,527,964, announced with the final results for Georgia’s presidential election. Echoing near-standard opposition criticism, Republican Party candidate Khmaladze argues that the number is too high and could lead to carousel voting � a practice he termed a time-honored Georgian election "tradition." Tarkhnishvili countered that the list is "overall in normal shape," though added that "[t]here is always a marginal error."

A report issued by the Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe on April 9 expressed doubts about the degree of political willpower to correct problem areas in the election system. The report also noted that the political climate in Georgia is still marred by "a lack of trust and absence of constructive dialogue" between the ruling party and the opposition.

That lack of trust could prove a critical stumbling block for the upcoming vote, believes Archil Gegeshidze, an analyst at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies in Tbilisi. Both the November 7 crackdown on protestors and the January presidential election have furthered those suspicions, Gegeshidze said. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. "I don’t know what the authorities can do to win the trust of the opposition," Gegeshidze added.

The CEC has already launched a prominent public information campaign that details voter rights and provides contact details for registering to vote. Tarkhnishvili, however, stresses that the CEC alone cannot take on the burden of assuring Georgia has a fair vote on May 21. Political parties, media and the authorities all have a role to play, he underlined.

"It is very difficult to increase the level of trust when political parties are declaring that everything was fraud and saying this without any evidence," Tarkhnishvili said.

Editor�s Note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.

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