Doc. 8605

22 December 1999

Ad hoc Committee to observe the parliamentary elections in Georgia (31 October 1999)

Report

Bureau of the Assembly

Rapporteur: Mr Terry Davis, United Kingdom, Socialist Group

1.       Introduction

1.       At the invitation of the Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia, Mr Zurab Zhvania, the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly took a decision to observe the Parliamentary elections held in that country on 31 October 1999. Such observation was regarded as an important element of the Parliamentary Assembly’s assistance to democracy-building in a recently admitted member State. Georgia became a member of the Council of Europe in April 1999. This election observation operation was also intended to help the Georgian authorities to deal with any electoral imperfections ahead of the Presidential elections, to be held in Georgia next April. Lastly, this election observation was regarded as helpful in the context of an eventual monitoring procedure for Georgia.

2.       At the proposal of the political groups, the Bureau set up an Ad hoc committee composed of:

Jacques BAUMEL       (EDG)       France

Peter        BRAND       (LDR)       United Kingdom

Dumeni COLUMBERG       (EPP)       Switzerland

Terry DAVIS        (Soc)       United Kingdom

      Zarko DOMLJAN       (EPP)       Croatia

Matyas EORSI       (LDR)       Hungary

      Ryszard GIBULA       (Soc)       Poland

      Federico Guglielmo LENTO       (UEL)       Italy

      Inge MYRVOLL       (UEL)       Norway

3.       At its meeting in Georgia on 28 October, the Ad hoc Committee elected Mr Terry Davis as its Chairman and Rapporteur.

4.       The Ad hoc Committee adopted its programme, prepared in close co-operation with the Georgian Parliament, and decided on the deployment of observers. The members of the Ad hoc Committee found the memorandum by the Bureau of the Assembly on the observation of the elections by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to be very useful. The Committee was accredited with the Georgian authorities in its own right and worked independently from other observers, but it maintained regular contacts with other international observers, notably from the OSCE/ODIHR, and the leader of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly delegation, in order to co-ordinate their findings.

5.       Mr Dronov and Ms Kostenko provided secretarial support to the ad hoc committee.

6.       The Ad hoc Committee stayed in Georgia from 27 October to 1 November 1999. The detailed programme of its activities is given in Appendix 1.

2.       The pre-election period

Electoral Law and Central Election Commission

7.       The Organic Law of Georgia on Parliamentary Elections was adopted by the Georgian Parliament on 1 September 1995. It has since been amended four times: 17 October 1997, 3 March 1999, 25 June 1999 and 20 July 1999. The last amendment was approved to reflect the constitutional amendment which increased the electoral threshold for the distribution of proportional seats from 5% to 7%. Surprisingly, the amendment was adopted at the request of the opposition parties, who hoped that the move could help bring about a less divided and more homogenous parliament. In effect, this provision makes it difficult for smaller parties to gain seats in the Parliament.

8.       Article 49 of the Constitution of Georgia determines the election system – 85 Members of Parliament are elected by a majoritarian system and 150 Members elected by a proportional system.

9.       One of the main concerns of opposition parties was that the Electoral Law, amended only a few months prior to the elections, allowed the ruling party to enjoy a dominant position in the election administration at all levels. For instance, the composition of the Central Election Commission (CEC) determined in Article 21 of the Electoral Law consists of 19 members, five of them appointed by the President, five by the Parliament (only two of these from the opposition parties), seven by parties which received more than 5% of the vote during the 1998 local elections and two by the Autonomous Republics of Abkhazia and Ajara. The CEC appointed half of the members of the 75 District Election Commissions.

10.       Another concern was that Article 11 of the Electoral Law provided that the resolutions of the CEC constituted “normative acts”, which meant that the CEC could change the provisions of the law by its resolutions. Several complaints about the work of the CEC were made by representatives of various political parties. For example, we were told:

- that the regulations concerning the registration of candidates and the nominations for membership of district election commission were issued very late;

- that some candidacies were rejected by the CEC on merely technical pretexts;

- that the CEC had permitted the use of any identity card bearing the photograph and the address of the voter for the registration of voters, resulting in a lot of confusion and concern about alleged fraud;

- that the CEC delayed the publication of the lists of voters;

- that the access by the representatives of opposition parties to the documentation of the CEC was, at times, restricted;

- that anyone making a complaint about a violation is required to obtain the signature of the person who is the subject of the complaint;

- that the results are not published by precinct or district.

11.       A number of points in the Electoral Law need to be improved, and this point was recognised by the Chairman of the Parliament during his meeting with the Ad hoc Committee. But, in general, the existing legislation does provide the necessary conditions for free elections if the relevant laws are rigorously applied.

12.       Furthermore, it is of particular importance that the Supreme Court (see paragraph 14 below) considered appeals against CEC decisions in a timely and impartial manner, only guided by the requirements of law.

13.       In the run-up to the elections, a number of serious incidents were recorded. In essence, the incidents concerned campaigning by representatives of two principal rival parties – the incumbent Citizens’ Union of Georgia and the opposition Revival bloc, with a strong foothold in the Autonomous Republic of Ajara. In both cases, representatives of the parties had not been allowed freedom of movement during the campaign.

Supreme Court

14.       The Supreme Court is made up of 42 judges. In the election context the Court has an important role to play in the settlement of disputes between the CEC and the candidates for the elections. If the CEC rejects a candidate an appeal can be filed with the Supreme Court. Decisions of the Court are definitive and final. In the run-up to the election, the Court received 197 complaints and 67 of them were upheld. Other complaints were rejected on the grounds that the papers submitted did not meet the existing requirements.

Constitutional Court

15.       According to Article 1 of the Organic Law of January 1996 on the Constitutional Court of Georgia, the Constitutional Court is entrusted with three general tasks: ensuring primacy of the Constitution; protection of the Constitutional legality, and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Court can verify the constitutional validity of laws concerning the elections. However, no election-related complaints were received by the Court in the context of this election.

3.        Voting

16.       To ensure the maximum coverage of the elections, the Ad hoc Committee divided into five teams which allowed it to visit more than 60 polling stations in Tbilisi and the regions of Mtskheta-Mtianeti, Ajara, South Ossetia, Shida Kartli and Kakheti.

17.       The elections were not held in the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia and in parts of South Ossetia with ethnic Ossetian population. (There were only 20 polling stations in South Ossetia – all in villages inhabited by ethnic Georgians.)

18.       The delegation paid special attention to the voting in Ajara because several opposition parties and the ruling Citizens’ Union of Georgia had asked the Ad hoc Committee to go there. In deciding on the deployment plan for other teams, the Committee focused on regions where problems were reported. It was further decided to seek to observe voting by soldiers in two military bases because no special provisions to observe military voting had been made by the Georgian authorities. It should also be noted that the polling stations in the army barracks were not included in the consolidated list of polling stations.

19.       More than 500 local and international observers were interviewed by the members of the committee. In general, the committee was positively impressed by the way in which the elections were organised and was also impressed by the high turnout (67 per cent of eligible voters).

20.       Nevertheless, several violations and irregularities in the electoral process were reported and witnessed by members of the committee, particularly in the Ajara and Kakheti regions.

21.       In Bakurttsikhe village, district N 25, the local observers from Revival Bloc and the Labour Party reported a case of multiple voting by the same person. The Chairman of the Election Committee pledged to check this case during the counting.

22.       In Kakheti region, Gurjaani district N 12, local observers who were counting the voters near the ballot box reported one case when the same person voted several times. The PACE observer group witnessed another attempt by the same person to vote (the attempt was prevented by the local observer). A representative of an international NGO reported to the team that there had been three cases of multiple voting in this district.

23.       Family voting was one of the most common violations of the Electoral Law in some areas. At several polling stations the observers saw family members entering the booths together or one member of the family voting for another member. In some cases, the polling station officials allowed it, taking into account the age of the voter and physical difficulties to vote. This violation could be explained by the fact that in Soviet times people had been allowed to vote for members of their family who were ill or absent at the time of the elections.

It must be emphasised that some observers did not see any examples of this practice, and that many polling station officials and local observers were especially vigilant in this regard.

24.       A common feature of many polling stations was the presence of uniformed policemen. While an irregularity, the presence of uniformed police – local people whom voters appeared to know and trust – did not seem to obstruct democratic voting. Far more disturbing was the presence of plainclothes police from the Ministry of the Interior at some polling stations. Their posture could be regarded as intimidation. They made no secret of their identity, and their presence added to disorganisation and tensions and, it would seem, created an atmosphere of mistrust and fear. Such cases were recorded by our observers at Tsikadziri polling station 27/11, a village inhabited by ethnic Azeris, and in Mtzkheta region station 27/13. The observers could not establish why secret police had to be deployed in some polling stations and not in others, and we expect clarification from the Georgian authorities. We hope that the situation will be rectified in time for the Presidential elections in April 2000.

25.       It should be noted that a great difference was observed between the polling stations in cities and in the villages. Some out-of-city polling stations did not have heating or electricity and were situated in cramped premises unable to accommodate all local observers and voters at the same time. By the same token, some polling stations, even in the capital city of Tbilisi, seemed to lack qualified and trained election committee staff, which led to overcrowding and lack of confidence.

26.       By contrast, military voting in army barracks, as observed in polling station 28/2 (Dushetia) was orderly and, despite suspicions by some members of the local election committee, was deemed by our observers to be well-organised and democratic. The local commander explained that the voting was taking place on the premises of a military base to avoid any provocation to those who would not be happy to see many uniformed servicemen show up at a regular polling station. On the other hand, at Samgouri polling station 14, where soldiers voted together with civilians, an officer stood just outside the booths. While the soldiers did not vote openly, his very presence could have been regarded as a form of pressure. When this point was made to him by our observers, he moved away.

4.       Co-operation with other international observers

27.       The committee maintained regular contacts with the OSCE resident mission in Georgia, the ODHIR election observation mission and international NGOs, including the National Democratic Institute and the International Society for Free Elections, whose observers seemed to be present at almost all polling stations. A meeting with the diplomatic community (representing ambassadors from the Council of Europe countries) was organised at the French Embassy.

28.       Our committee suggested that it would be a good idea to hold a joint meeting between the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the PACE delegation with local NGOs and the media, but our suggestion was rejected by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly delegation, so that separate meetings were held. Nevertheless, our delegation’s findings were co-ordinated with OSCE PA at the level of Heads of Delegation and the respective secretariats.

29.       The delegation held its own press conference and circulated its press release on 1 November (see Appendix 2). In addition to media representatives, the final press conference was attended by the Head and members of the OSCE resident mission.

5.       Conclusions

30.       This was the first election which the Parliamentary Assembly has observed since Georgia’s accession to the Council of Europe. Overall, our conclusion - shared by other international observers - was that the vote marked a significant and welcome improvement over previous elections. Freedom of expression and association were generally respected during the pre-election period. Although the results of voting for 36 of the 85 majoritarian seats were deemed inconclusive and a second round was scheduled for 14 November (for the official results of the election, see Appendix 3), the Committee did not observe this second round.

31.       The Election Law is far from perfect and gives a lot of room for interpretation by the Central Electoral Committee. This situation should be rectified by the new Parliament. However, the relevant existing legislation has established what appears to be an adequate framework for the conduct of democratic elections.

32.       The delegation did hear complaints about the conduct of the pre-election campaign, the composition of election committees and allocation of time and space in the media. It expects these complaints to be investigated in time for the Presidential election in April 2000.

33.       Although the delegation did take note of some technical irregularities in the conduct of the elections, these irregularities did not affect the outcome of the vote in our opinion. The delegation was impressed by the way in which Georgians of all political views worked together to ensure that the elections were an exercise in democracy.

34.       Finally, to ensure that the next election is a further improvement, the Committee calls on the Georgian authorities:

-       to take measures to avoid any police harassment during the election campaign;

-       to investigate all reported instances of police presence (in particular Ministry of the Interior plain clothes men) inside polling stations and rigorously enforce a ban on such presence during future elections;

-       to provide training for members of election committees.

Appendix 1

Programme of the visit of the Council of Europe observers’ mission to Georgia

(27 October – 1 November 1999)

27 October, Wednesday

Arrival in Tbilisi

28 October, Thursday

09.00       - Meeting of the ad hoc Committee (Hotel)

10.00       - Meeting with the Chairman of the Constitutional Court

       Mr. Avtandil Demetrashvili

10.45 - Meeting with the Chairman of the Central Election

Commission Mr. Jumber Lominadze

11.45       - Depart for the Supreme Court of Georgia

12.00       - Meeting with the Chairman of the Supreme Court of Georgia,

Mr. Lado Chanturia

13.00       - Meeting with Mr. Zurab Zhvania, Chairman of the Parliament

       (David Agmashenebeli Hall)

15.30 - Meeting with the Citizens’ Union of Georgia

representatives

(Royal Hall)

16.15 - Meeting with National Democratic Party representatives

(Royal Hall)

17.00       - Meeting with Labour Party representatives

(Royal Hall)

17.45       - Meeting with the representatives of the Block

       “Industry will Survive Georgia”

(Royal Hall)

20.00       - Dinner hosted by the Permanent Representative of Georgia to the

Council of Europe Mrs. Lana Gogoberidze

29 October, Friday

09.30       - Meeting with the Head of the OSCE resident mission,

       Ambassador Jean Michel Lacombe

11.00       - Meeting with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs

       Mr. Shota Dogonadze

12.00       - Meeting with People’s Party representatives

(Royal Hall)

12.45       - Meeting with Socialist party representatives

(Royal Hall)

13.30       - Meeting with the Union “Revival of Georgia”

representatives

(Royal Hall)

16.00       - Meeting with Ambassadors of the COE member-countries

17.00       - Meeting with representatives of the National Democratic Institute (NGO)

19.00       - Meeting with the Head of ODIHR election observation mission

30 October, Saturday

Batumi group departs at 8.00 a.m.

10.00       - Meeting with NGOs

(Ilia Chavchavadze Hall)

11.30       - Depart for the old capital of Georgia Mtskheta

12.00-13.30       - Sightseeing in Mtskheta

14.00       - Visit to Tbilissi Brandy Factory

18.00       - Concert at the Youth Palace

31 October, Sunday

Elections in progress

1 November, Monday

9.30 - Press-conference

12.05       - Departure for Frankfurt

Appendix 2

PRESS RELEASE

Elections in Georgia : another step in the right direction

TBILISI, 02.11.99 – "We congratulate the Georgian people on another step in the right direction", said Terry DAVIS (United Kingdom, SOC), head of the COUNCIL OF EUROPE Parliamentary Assembly’s delegation (*) to observe parliamentary elections in Georgia, held on 31 October.

The delegation, who came to Georgia at the invitation of the Georgian Parliament to witness the first election following Georgia’s accession to the Council of Europe, expressed its strong belief that the vote marked a significant and welcome improvement over previous elections.

In the delegation’s opinion, some technical irregularities that were noted in the conduct of the elections did not affect the outcome of the poll. The delegation members were impressed by the way in which Georgians of all political opinions worked together to ensure that the elections were an exercise in democracy.

The delegation interviewed more than 500 local observers representing candidates and political parties in 60 polling stations. They received two complaints about serious violations on election day and also witnessed an attempted violation in Ajaria. In addition, the delegation was told about several serious complaints to the Central Election Commission during the pre-election period by the Citizens Union of Georgia and the Revival Bloc. They asked to be informed about the follow-up to these complaints. Nevertheless, these incidents should not be allowed to spoil the overall impression of a vigorous democracy.

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(*) Jacques BAUMEL, (France, EDG) ; Peter BRAND, (United Kingdom, LDR) ;

Dumeni COLUMBERG, (Switzerland, EPP/CD) ; Terry DAVIS, (United Kingdom, SOC) ; Zarko DOMLJAN, (Croatia, EPP/CD) ; Matyas EORSI, (Hungary, LDR) ; Ryszard GIBULA, (Poland, SOC) ; Federico Guglielmo LENTO, (Italy, UEL) ; Inge MYRVOLL, (Norway, UEL)

Appendix 3

The Central Election Commission of Georgia

Tbilisi, 7 November 1999

The final minutes of the results of the 31 October Parliamentary Elections in Georgia

In accordance with the Organic Law “on Parliamentary Elections in Georgia”, Article 22, point 2, sub-point “R” and Article 54, points 3 and 11, the Central Election Commission of Georgia on its session held on 7 November 1999 summarised the results of the Parliamentary Elections of 31 October 1999 and ruled:

1.       The total number of the electorate       3 143 851

2.       The total of voters who have participated in the elections       2 133 878

3.       As a result of the first round of the elections, 199 MPs are elected, out of them 49 MPs based on Majority Principle, and 150 — by Proportional Principle.

The votes received by parties and political blocs:

Appendix 4