Parliament fails again to elect Central Election Commission head, members in third vote
The chairman of the CEC will be elected to the post for six months, instead of five years. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.
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The Georgian parliament has failed to elect a new chairperson and members of the Central Election Commission (CEC) for the third time, following the resignation of the CEC’s head Tamar Zhvania on June 30.
Zhvania’s resignation was demanded by the opposition following the 2020 parliamentary elections, of which they accused her of helping the ruling Georgian Dream party to fabricate.
Further changes came to the country’s electoral system on June 28 thanks to the EU-mediated agreement, which put an end to the political standoff in Georgia caused by the parliamentary elections of October 31.
Per the new amendments, the CEC chairperson can be elected only by the parliament of Georgia with the nomination of the Georgian president and not by the CEC itself.
The candidacies of Giorgi Kalandarishvili and Giorgi Santuriani were submitted for the chair of the CEC by Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili to parliament, but none of them received 90 votes in the third vote.
In the previous two votes, none of the chairperson candidates received 100 votes.
Kalandarishvili’s candidacy received 81 votes in favour and seven against at today’s session, while Santuriani was supported by three MPs, and voted against.
One more vote is left for the election of the head and members of CEC, for which 76 votes will be enough for the appointment to the vacant posts.
However, in this case, the chairman of the CEC will be elected to the post for six months, instead of five years.
Several opposition parties have expressed distrust in the proposed candidates and refuse to participate in the voting process.
The NGO sector did not support the CEC chairmanship candidates either, noting that the selected candidates ‘do not meet the most important criteria, which is high public credibility.’
The Georgian parliament has elected Giorgi Kalandarishvili as the new head of the Central Election Commission (CEC) in a fourth vote, following the resignation of the body’s former chair Tamar Zhvania in late June. Two other individuals, Gia Tsatsashvili and Maia Zaridze, were elected members of the commission.
Significant shortcomings were not found in the parliamentary elections of October 31, 2020, the temporary parliamentary commission created to study the matter stated earlier today. The Georgian parliament established the temporary commission earlier this year to investigate allegations of parliamentary election violations, which caused a six-month political standoff in the country and was largely solved following the EU-mediated agreement on April 19.
Ruling Georgian Dream party MP Shalva Papuashvili has said that NGOs planned to leave the Central Election Commission (CEC) unstaffed following reforms which saw the resignation of the body’s chair Tamar Zhvania in late June, and to later stack the CEC with its own representative.
Two candidates for the post of chair and five candidates for membership on the Central Election Commission have been proposed to the president following the recent resignation of Tamar Zhvania on June 30. The Georgian parliament adopted electoral amendments on June 28 proposed by the ruling Georgian Dream party and opposition party Citizens amid months of standoff between the government and opposition and were revised in compliance with the April 19 EU-mediated agreement.
The Georgian parliament has adopted electoral amendments earlier today with its third and final reading which were initially proposed back in March 2021 by the ruling Georgian Dream party and Citizens opposition and later were revised in line with the April 19 EU-mediated agreement.
The Georgian parliament has failed to elect a new head of the Central Election Commission (CEC) for a second time following the resignation of the body’s chairperson Tamar Zhvania in late June. Zhvania’s resignation followed electoral amendments proposed by the ruling Georgian Dream party and the opposition party Citizens which were revised in compliance with the EU-mediated agreement which ended months of political crisis caused by the parliamentary elections of 2020 and afterwards were adopted in the Georgian parliament on June 28.
The Administration of the President of Georgia submitted its list of candidates for the positions of the Central Election Commission (CEC) head and members to the parliament earlier today.
Irakli Kobakhidze, the head of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Thursday accused President Salome Zourabichvili and a part of the domestic opposition of “hampering” the process of composition of the country’s Central Election Commission, following the party’s announcement about a new electoral bill on election of the Commission Chair in the Parliament.