The ruling Georgian Dream party intends on restricting the President's authority to select candidates for the chairmanship and membership of the Central Election Commission (CEC) and submit them to the Parliament. The draft law in question was submitted by the deputies of the parliamentary majority on May 3, and it will probably be presented to the Bureau at today's session.
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Amendments are to be made to the Georgian Election Code and Parliamentary procedures. According to the draft:
- The selection competition for the chairman and members of the CEC will be announced and the selection committee will be created by the chairman of the parliament (instead of the president). In addition, the president can have a representative within the selection committee;
- Entrants for the chairmanship and membership of the CEC will be presented by the chairman of the parliament. President is expected to take part in the announcement of candidates. In particular, if the parliament fails to fill all available vacancies the first time, the president will be entitled to promote one candidate for each remaining seat from among the rest of the candidates from the competition;
- CEC chairmen and members will be elected with a 5-year term;
- CEC chairmen and members will be elected in the parliament by majority rule, which means with at least 76 MP’s support.
The Central Election Commission consists of no more than 17 members, among them, are the chairman of the CEC, two deputy chairmen, and the secretary of the CEC. According to the current edition of the Election Code, 7 members of the CEC are elected by the Parliament on the nomination of the President, and no more than 9 members of the CEC are appointed by the parties. The President has the authority to select a candidate for the chairmanship of the CEC and submit it to the Parliament. The president issues a decree on conducting the competition and creating the selection committee. In order to elect the CEC chairman and members for a 5-year term in office, the support of 2/3 of the parliament, so 100 deputies, is required. The term length of the CEC member who is elected by less than 2/3 votes is only 6 months.
Giorgi Sioridze, one of the deputy chairmen of the CEC and a member of the opposition party Lelo, states that the government is preparing for the 2024 parliamentary elections by “bringing the Central Election Commission into a one-party dominion”.
“According to the package of legislative changes initiated by the leaders of the ruling party, the government controls the procedures on its own - it will be able to choose the chairman of the CEC by itself, without agreement from everyone, and accordingly, conduct the process in an anti-democratic way, as it wishes.
With the new changes, the chairman and members of the CEC are elected by the members of the parliament by majority rule, meaning by a single party, and for a 5-year term. The conclusions of the Venice Commission and the OSCE/ODIHR are ignored.
At the same time, according to the package of reforms, the constitutional prerogative of the President of Georgia to present to the Parliament the nominees for the chairmanship and membership of the CEC is being taken away. This is an attack on the institution of the President, which resulted from the fact that the President did not present the candidates desired by the government to the Parliament.
Charles Michel's main achievement was a mechanism for electing the CEC chairman and members, which required a qualified, 2/3 majority in the parliament, and was based on consensus and the need for political consultations between parties. According to the updated package, all of this will be negated,” said Sioridze at today's briefing.
The deputy chairman of the CEC notes that if the parliament accepts the draft law initiated by Georgian Dream, “it will be a huge step backward on the way of development of institutional democracy.”
The authors of the legislative amendments, among whom is Mamuka Mdinaradze, the chairman of the Georgian Dream faction, explain that the legislation in force in the EU member states does not recognize the possibility of electing the members of a similar body, and even more so, the head person, by a procedure similar to the rule defined by the Election Code of Georgia.
At the moment, Giorgi Kalandarishvili is acting as the chairman of the CEC. At the unplanned session of the Parliament held on December 22, 2022, one of the two candidates for the chairmanship of the CEC, Tamar Alpaidze, nominated by President Salome Zurabishvili, was not supported by any MP, and only one MP voted for Revaz Egadze.
Giorgi Kalandarishvili also participated in the selection contest, but the president did not submit his candidacy to the parliament, which was explained by the fact that in the previous two cases, Kalandarishvili could not get the support of 2/3 of the parliament, and therefore, he was elected to the position for a period of 6 months. Giorgi Kalandarishvili’s candidacy was endorsed by Georgian Dream.
