On 1 November, Georgia woke up with a new composition of the parliament, the old problems, and a headache caused by the election hangover. But well, as they say, one must drink less, in particular, the low-quality election swill to which those who like the power so kindly treated the electors during the election campaign.
Georgia Has Completed its Election
On 31 October, the last parliamentarian elections in the passing
century were held in Georgia. Out of 235 seats in the one-chamber parliament,
150 were distributed according to a proportional electoral system based
on the general national party lists and another 85 seats were given to
one-seat constituencies where the elections were held according to a majority
electoral system. Only parties which have cleared a 7-percent election
bar are represented in the parliament while in order to win in the majority-type
constituencies it is necessary to win no fewer than one-third of the voter
turnout. In those constituencies where no candidate received the critical
support, the second round of elections was held on 14 November.
During the previous parliamentary elections held four years ago, the election barrier (at the time, it was set at a 5-percent level) was also cleared by only three parties: SGG won 22.3 percent of votes; the National Democratic Party won 7.8 percent of votes, and the Revival of Georgia won 7.5 percent of votes. In 1995, the share of parties and blocs which did not get into the parliament on the basis of party lists stood at almost two-thirds of the votes while this year it was only about one-fourth of all votes cast.
The result which was achieved, in one way or another, by the ruling party during the past election could be called its unconditional victory, if not for a range of circumstances to be discussed below. But yet when the country goes through the deepest socioeconomic crisis, where the revenues to the budget, which is very poor as it is, do not systematically reach the planned indicators, where wages and pensions have not been paid for months, where the majority of the population are dragging out a miserable existence below the official living standards and corruption in power structures has reached an unprecedented level, there must be the explanation of the fact that the ruling party gets a much greater number of votes than at the previous elections (…)
About the Procedure
As is known, the elections usually begin long before the date of
the vote and even before the official start of the election campaign. But
here I will limit myself to only general observations over the course of
the election campaign, the voting procedures, and the calculation of votes.
In compliance with the law, all parties and blocs which take part in the elections are entitled to the equal and free-of-charge time on the sole television channel performing on the entire territory of Georgia -- the First Channel of the State (in reality, the Government) Television. Indeed, for 25 days, the first channel showed three-hour blocs (10 minutes for a party) where the leaders of political parties appeared on the screen. But, first, these programs were broadcast at the time of the day (at 1000 a.m. and 0300 p.m.) when the number of the television viewers was at its minimum; and second, it was practically impossible to sort out who was talking sense and who was talking nonsense, because three-thirds of 33 electoral subjects were pseudo political one-day organizations whose representatives managed to create an absolutely obscure background for their election campaign on the television. The remaining broadcasting time, from morning till night, was filled with the direct and indirect campaigning of the ruling party. For example, disguised as the news program, the television presented two-hour meetings of the Georgian president with the workers of different rayons of the country (one must pay the tribute to Shevarnadze -- he was very active); the footage about the trips to cities and villages by the speaker of the parliament, the state minister, and other top representatives of the authorities that in fact was the true election campaigning. The time given to the SGG campaigning video clips considerably exceeded the time given to all the remaining parties and blocs combined. A similar picture was also on commercial channels where the two factors turned out to be decisive: the practically unlimited financial opportunities of the ruling party and the unwillingness of the owners of private television companies to spoil their relations with the powers that be. If one multiplies the number of minutes given to the SGG television campaign by the official cost of these minutes, there will be an amount which will greatly exceed the money which the ruling party was entitled to spend on the election campaign, as postulated by the law. But there were also posters which the ruling party, with the enviable permanence, pasted upon the campaigning materials of all its competitors; there were also all kinds of SGG campaigning panels which filled the capital and other big cities of the country; it was necessary to pay cash to activists who visited the houses of electors and to the members of the electoral commissions for their sharpness displayed in drafting the lists of electors and for their selflessness during the calculation of votes and drafting of the protocol of the vote. In this way, the ruling party -- SGG -- received the absolute carte blanche in terms of conducting its election campaign.
Traditionally, the most serious direct violations were connected with the lists of electors. The census of Georgia, scheduled for May-June of this year, was cancelled by the authorities precisely in order to, according to many observers, exclude the exact data on the number of electors. This made it possible to place on the lists of voters a great number of "dead souls" some of whom had truly moved to the another world, but the others abandoned the country in a search for a job. Finally, the "spare" ballot papers found themselves in ballot boxes and the prevailing majority of the "dead souls" turned out to be the supporters of the ruling party. The individuals who were under arrest or under investigation, servicemen who voted in "closed" constituencies which were practically inaccessible for observers, and patients of different hospitals, also mental hospitals, also turned out to be the supporters of the ruling party. On the day of the election, the so-called "mobile groups" were active: sometimes the same people were placed on the lists of voters in different constituencies and consequently they voted several times. In a Tbilisi constituency, 15,000 ballot papers disappeared without any trace, without any consequences for the responsible officials. As a result of all this manipulations, the voter turnout was greatly increased: according to estimates of the local experts, some 1.9 million voters cast their votes while according to the data provided by the Central Election Commission, the votes were cast by over 2.1 million citizens.
One can speak endlessly about the most different violations. The detailed analysis of the election campaign in Georgia could become a monograph under a conditional title "How One Must Not Hold Elections."
I must also stress that in compliance with the law which the SGG parliamentary majority "repaired" directly before the elections, the ruling party obtained the majority in the electoral commissions of all levels. And in electoral commissions all disputable issues are resolved by the majority of votes. In addition, the complaints of violations of the voting procedure could be submitted only on the day of elections and only by 0800 p.m., that is, until the time when the polling station was closed for electors. Hence, even theoretically, the violations during the calculation of votes could not be appealed against.
Media
The elections showed vividly that in reality one can count on the
fingers of one hand the number of independent mass media in Georgia. Newspapers,
also independent, due to their funny low circulation cannot generally exert
any effective impact on the public opinion. The same can be said about
the majority of the commercial channels the performance of which is limited
to small territories. Generally speaking, the election campaign was regarded
by the mass media as a means to earn as much as possible on direct, or
slightly disguised advertising of those who paid more. Naturally, there
is nothing bad in a wish to earn within the framework of the law, but when
the freedom of speech in the country is not an inviolable tradition established
over the centuries, one must think that the absence of personal principles
could lead to the loss of an opportunity to make money in the future. Not
to mention a threat to lose the available degree of freedom and moral principles.
Reproaches leveled at the embryos of the civic society -- the non-governmental organizations and the independent mass media -- could be perceived by some as being out of place: let everyone deal with its own business -- be they politicians, non-governmental organizations, or journalists. But the matter is that in post-totalitarian countries where the issues of the irreversibility of the democratic development are far from being resolved, retrogrades are not at all less active and as a rule, they are much better organized than the representatives of the emerging progressive forces. Therefore, a too precise "division of powers" and the distance between the participants in the democratic process is fraught with the weakening of the process in general and the defeat of each of them individually in their spheres of activities.
But the emerged situation adequately reflects the state of the society, or rather of a prototype of society, because in the country where in fact there is no middle class, one cannot speak about society, the public opinion, the conscientious and responsible choice. Therefore, perhaps it is even logical that the Western observers were satisfied with the fact that in their opinion the elections in Georgia were more effective than in any other post-soviet republic. Although, if they sincerely wish good to the people of this country, it would be more correct to say that the elections in Georgia were less democratic than, for example, in Bulgaria. But in the long run, the people must wish themselves good, and they must not wish good abstractly, but they also must do something. And they must think, at least once in a four-year period.
Ivlian Khaindrava
25 November 1999