Observers give cautious thumbs-up to Georgia's vote

Giorgi Lomsadze: 5/22/08

International election watchdogs have given a tepid endorsement to Georgia's May 21 parliamentary election, a poll in which President Mikheil Saakashvili's governing United National Movement party looks set to secure a clear victory.

"Georgia is moving toward democracy, but it is hard to tell how far it has traveled so far," said Bruce George, head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Parliamentary Assembly's delegation, at a May 22 presentation of international observers' findings.

Early returns give a commanding lead to the National Movement. With 2,711 of 3,630 polling stations counted, the party has gained 58.77 percent of the proportional vote, while the splintered opposition trails far behind.

The United Opposition Movement headed by former presidential candidate Levan Gachechiladze holds a distant second place, according to preliminary returns, with 18.18 percent of the proportional vote. The Christian Democrats, a newcomer party headed by well-known television journalist Giorgi Targamadze, have third place with 8.45 percent of the proportional vote. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The Labor Party is the last opposition party to have cleared the 5 percent hurdle necessary to take party list seats in parliament, with 7.44 percent of the vote. The Republican Party, the driving policy force behind the United Opposition during the 2008 presidential elections, has gained so far just 3.88 percent of the vote.

Georgian voters cast their votes separately for parties and for representatives of electoral districts, a set-up that means some opposition parties could still, in theory, secure a seat without clearing the proportional vote threshold. The 150 seats in the parliamentary assembly will be split in half between parties and individually elected parliamentarians.

In individual races, the United National Movement so far appears to be losing a few large individual constituencies in Tbilisi to opposition groups, but generally maintaining its lead.

But any government optimism over the preliminary vote results will come tempered by a broad roster of complaints from international observers about the election's conduct.

Progress, nonetheless, has been made, said the group, made up of delegates from the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the European Parliament and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

The voting process was assessed as good or very good at 92 percent of the 1,500 polling stations visited.

"These elections were not perfect, but since I was here in January for the presidential election, concrete and substantial progress has been made," said Joao Soares, head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly mission. Apart from citing improved election coverage from Georgian Public Broadcasting, the delegates, however, did not elaborate.

As in past elections, the vote count itself was among the most prominent problem areas. Nearly a quarter (22 percent) of the international observers surveyed found polling stations' vote count to be bad or very bad, the report reads.

A similarly poor evaluation was handed to 16 percent of district election commissions for their vote tabulation. "Unauthorized persons" sometimes took part in the proceedings, according to the report, while some district commissions said that they would complete their summary protocols "closer to the legal deadline for doing so" on May 31.

As of mid-afternoon on May 22, results from 14 polling stations had been thrown out.

Responding to a question from EurasiaNet about the vote count process, Deputy Interior Minister Eka Zghuladze, spokesperson for the government's Inter-Agency Task Force for Free and Fair Elections, placed blame for the complaints elsewhere.

"That is not the direct responsibility of the executive government," said Zghuladze. "What I can say is that there has been a lot of simplification in the procedures and the protocols. There has been a lot of simplification in the complaints process."

"Political will," she added, exists to make sure that the election process goes well.

Other problem areas cited by international observers, however, clearly fall within the government's purview.

Extensive use of administrative resources by the government in the period leading up to the election is among the chief complaints. "The distinction between state activities and the UNM [United National Movement] campaign was often blurred, contributing inequities to the campaign," reads the International Observation Mission's preliminary report.

Ironically, though, under Georgia's recently amended election law, "all election subjects" have equal access to public buildings, vehicles and "communication means." The president, government ministers, parliamentarians and local government heads are also allowed to combine campaign and official work. "This falls short of OSCE commitments," the report found.

The report, however, commended the Central Election Commission for working transparently and openly, but noted that opposition parties were underrepresented throughout all election commissions, while the UNM held a decision-making majority. In addition, the report said, election commissions and courts displayed a bias in favor of the UNM when considering complaints.

A UNM bias was also prevalent in television election coverage from the country's two largest private broadcasters, Rustavi-2 and Mze, the international mission found. A recent mutual boycott between the opposition and the two stations contributed to some of the disbalance, although both channels have heavily featured reports about government activities – including live feeds of cabinet meetings – that favor the ruling party.

Another recurring complaint in Georgian elections, voter lists, resurfaced again as a problem area in the parliamentary vote, although appeared to be a more secondary concern. Several opposition party leaders claimed that lists had been inflated with the names of the dead or via multiple records and non-existent addresses. Observers said that some of the claims have been substantiated.

The mission also observed occasional carousel voting and ballot box-stuffing. According to the observer's statement, there have been eight cases when voters have been ferried around to cast ballots.

In the Black Sea coastal town of Batumi, the opposition Republican Party candidate Davit Berdzenishvili claimed that a convoy of soldiers had been transported to the city on election day for such a purpose. Rustavi-2 television aired footage of the convoy Berdzenishvili had recorded with his cell phone. Armed forces representatives denied the allegations.

With the vote count still in progress, non-profit groups have also been taking turns to report election violations. Transparency International observed turmoil in several precincts in the southern region of Shida Kartli, a traditional political foothold for the ruling party, that seemed to reflect bad training of local election officials.

"Worst of all, some of our observers have been expelled from the precinct [in Bolnisi] when they tried to file a complaint with the local election commission," said Tamuna Karosanidze, executive director of Transparency International's Georgia chapter.

A trio of non-profit groups, Transparency International, the International Society for Fair Elections and the Georgian Young Lawyers Association, complained that their observers came under intimidation and pressure at a number of rural precincts.

While election day itself was deemed to have passed calmly, international and local observers alike noted a tense and bitter atmosphere. The authorities and opposition both accuse the other of vote tampering. Screaming matches between election commission officials, party observers, candidates and others – sometimes for unknown reasons – were broadcast throughout the day on television.

The mixed review may not have been the clear-cut endorsement the government wanted, but Inter-Agency Task Force spokesperson Zghuladze expressed no disappointment.

"Georgia is very proud," she said, to be judged "according to Western European standards and not post-Soviet standards. That must mean we've done something right."

Tackling opposition dissatisfaction with the vote – and with international observers – may prove a tougher challenge.

"International observers should know better than to spend their time drinking and partying with government officials," said Salome Zourabichvili, a former foreign minister and the leader of Georgia's Way, one of the United Opposition coalition parties.

Key opposition groups have already roundly dismissed the preliminary election results, which roughly corresponded with the returns in parallel vote tabulations and exit polls.

Some opposition parties had threatened to lead a popular rebellion, but a past-midnight protest rally in Tbilisi on May 21 gathered a relatively small crowd and fizzled out uneventfully.

In his first post-election television appearance, President Saakashvili struck a conciliatory note towards such parties. "I'm very much looking forward to working with every, even the smallest, political faction and party in the new parliament," he said, but also warned his opponents that he would not tolerate disregard of the election results.

"[N]o one should have any illusion in this respect," he said.

Editor's Note: Giorgi Lomsadze is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi. With reporting added by Molly Corso in Tbilisi.

Posted May 22, 2008 © Eurasianet