The President of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, vetoed the amendments to the Election Code adopted by the Parliament, which change the procedure for electing the chairman and members of the Central Election Commission (CEC).
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By the existing law, the competition for the selection of the CEC chairman and members is announced, and the candidate selection commission is created, by the president. After the amendments, the creation of the commission and the selection and presentation of candidates will be done by the chairman of the parliament, and the election will be done by a simple majority vote in the parliament, which, according to the president, means one-party decision-making.
“Electing the chairman and members with 76 votes instead of 100 eliminated the need for consensus-based decisions and increases the risk of polarization. The veto serves the purpose of maintaining this consensus,” states the president.
Salome Zourabichvili proposes to the parliament that the chairman and members of the CEC be elected with at least 90 votes, as it happened in the case of the public defender. The President believes that this is necessary to maintain and strengthen trust in elections and election administration.
The Parliament adopted the amendments to the Election Code in the third and final hearing on June 13. The initiators of the bill were members of Georgian Dream - Mamuka Mdinaradze, Givi Mikanadze, Davit Matikashvili, Rati Ionatamishvili, and Irakli Shatakishvili.
Improvement of the electoral legislation is one of the 12 conditions defined for Georgia for obtaining the status of EU candidate. On June 22, the European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi, stated that Georgia has made “certain progress” in this direction. The European Commission calls on Georgia to drop the amendments in the election legislation, which changes the procedure for the appointment of the chairman of the Central Election Commission.
