I am away at the moment, so posts may be less detailed than usual for the next couple of weeks.

However, I thought that I would follow up yesterday’s post about political pluralism in Armenia with reports from Georgia about the formation of a new political party/movement.

Like Armenia, Georgia has a number of political parties, but President Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) is dominant. However, will things change? RFE/RL is reporting that Georgian billionaire, Bidzina Ivanishvili is launching a new political movement in opposition to the UNM.

He promises to contest the 2012 legislative election. Given the constitutional changes to the Georgian system, these elections will now be the ones that choose the country’s principal political leader.

There is no evidence yet of how much support there is for Mr. Ivanishvili, but he seems to have enough money to run a proper campaign.

Civil.ge is reporting the text of Ivanishvili’s statement here. There is also another report here.

Civil Georgia is reporting details of the new electoral system in the country. Apparently, agreement was reached between the ruling National Movement party and both the Christian-Democratic Movement (CDM) and the New Rights Party. However, six opposition parties have rejected the new system.

The two main elements of the reforms are an increase in the number of deputies from 150 to 190 and a split whereby 83 seats will be elected in single-member plurality districts and 107 will be elected proportionally on the basis of a list system. The current split is 75/75. The increase in the number of seats will have to be approved in a referendum.

RFE/RL reports that the Georgian parliament has voted 112-5 in favour of the proposed constitutional amendments. They also have a video with an expert commenting on the reforms.

I do not have a confirmed copy of the final version of the reforms. However, There is a recent text in English available at the Venice Commission website.

In effect, they downgrade the role of the president and increase the power of the PM. They are controversial because the assumption is that term-limited President Saakashvili will be able to continue in power as PM after the elections in 2013.

The Venice Commission has issued its draft opinion on the proposed constitutional changes in Georgia. It is available here. There is a report on the Commission’s opinion in Civil.ge here. A useful list of the changes with some analysis is available here.

In a previous post Malkhaz Nakashidze discussed the draft constitutional reforms in Georgia. Civil Georgia reports that the final draft has now been agreed by the State Commission on Constitutional reform by a vote of 44-3. The final draft is said the be ‘fully in line” with the original draft.

Civil Georgia now reports that the final draft has now begun to be discussed in the legislature, which has just set up a 36-person committee that will oversee an obligatory one-month public discussion period.

If passed, and they surely will, then the reforms concerning the presidency are due to come into effect on 1 December 2013, whereas the reforms concerning local government will start in January 2011.

In Georgia the first round of local elections were held on 30 May. The Central Election Commission is reporting the following results of the total nationwide vote:

United National Movement – 65.5%
Alliance for Georgia (I. Alasania, S. Subari, D. Usupashvili, D. Gamkrelidze, S. Zourabichvili) – 9.1%
Giorgi Targamadze, Inga Grigolia – Christian Democratic Union – 11.9%
National Council – 6.9%
Topadze – Industrialists – 4.2%

The big contest was in Tbilisi:

United National Movement – 52.49%
Alliance for Georgia – 17.98%
Christian Democratic Union – 12.05%
National Council – 8.26%
Industrialists – 6.23%
No other candidate won more than 1 per cent of the vote.

RFE/RL reports that Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) declared that the election was “transparent” and marked “evident progress towards meeting international standards”, although there were “significant shortcomings remain to be addressed”.

So, the bottom line seems to be that the opposition did not do as well as it had hoped and that the elections were fair enough for them to have been able to do so if they had gained enough support.

There is a nice graphic relating to all the elections here.

Constitutional Amendments in Georgia
Malkhaz Nakashidze
Since 2004 the Georgia has had a semi-presidential Constitution. Indeed, since the 2004 amendments Georgia has had a President-Parliamentary form of semi-presidentialism with a President who has strong legislative and non-legislative powers. On May 11, 2010, the State Constitutional Commission of Georgia adopted a set of recommendations for constitutional amendments.

I think that the revisions are interesting, because, if approved, they will reduce both the legislative and the non-legislative powers of the President. Also, if approved, the amendments will significantly increase the role of the Parliament and the Government, and the Prime Minister will become a more important “player” than is currently the case.

If the amendments are passed, then:
– The President will remain the Head of the State, but will not lead and exercise the internal and foreign policy of the state;
– The Government of Georgia will be the supreme organ of the executive branch and will exercise the domestic and foreign policy of the State and will be accountable to Parliament;
– The President will not be able to dissolve the Government and dismiss Ministers on his/her own initiative;
– The Government shall be deemed dismissed before the newly elected Parliament and not before newly elected President;
– The President shall nominate a candidate of Prime Minister from the list proposed by the political group with the best result in the Parliamentary elections;
– The Government shall be authorized to submit the Draft Budget to the Parliament without the consent of the President;
– The President shall not approve the State Budget by a decree;
–  A Rule will be introduced according to which legal acts of the President of Georgia shall be countersigned by the Prime Minister;
–  The Government shall adopt decrees and resolutions on the basis of the constitution and laws but not on the basis of the normative acts of the President;

If passed, the amended Constitution will state that the President of Georgia shall negotiate with foreign states and conclude international conventions and agreements but only with the consent of the Government. In my opinion, the President should retain the right negotiate with foreign states and conclude international conventions and agreements without the consent of the Government but with the approval of the legislature.

By contrast, in the amended Constitution, the President will retain the right to initiate legislation. As a rule, in semi-presidential countries the right to legislative initiative lies with the Government and not the President. I believe the Government, not the President, should have the right of legislative initiative.

Unfortunately, the proposed amendments have not changed the issue about the partisanship of the President. The Constitutional Commission did consider the issue of a non-partisan President, but in the end did not decide in this way. Thus, Article 72 of Constitution will state that President of Georgia shall not have the right to hold any other position except for a party position i.e. the president is not required to be non-partisan. The partisanship of the President can pose a threat in semi-presidential systems.

Finally, it should be noted that there are many interesting issues that are not directly related to semi-presidentialism and that, as a result, have not been analyzed in this article.

Malkhaz Nakashidze
Assistant – Professor
Shota Rustaveli State University
Batumi, Georgia

On 8 June 2009 President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia established a commission on constitutional reforms. This was part of deal that the President offered to the opposition in the face of their ongoing protests against his regime. My understanding is that not all opposition parties agreed to be part of the committee, but that at least five parties, in addition to the ruling National Movement, did agree. Civil.ge reports them as follows; Christian-Democratic Movement; National-Democratic Party; On Our Own; Democratic Party of Georgia; and Georgian Troupe. It seems as if the non-parliamentary opposition refused to be part of the process.

Anyway, RFE/RL reports that on 11 May the commission voted by 31 to 10 with 2 abstentions to approve a draft constitution (by which I think is meant amendments to the existing constitution). The draft was co-authored by a member of the ruling National Movement and a member of the opposition National Democratic Party.

The RFE/RL site has quite a lot of information about the document, though I have not been able to obtain the text. I will leave you to go to the site if you are interested in the details. The bottom line is that the commission seems to have recommended maintaining the country’s semi-presidential structure. However, the power of the president will be reduced. For example, the president will lose the right to dismiss the PM, making Georgia an example of premier-presidentialism.

The RFE/RL report concludes with the obvious political speculation. President Saakashvili is term-limited. Therefore, if he wishes to stay in power, then either he has to abolish term limits, which western governments would be against, or he has to strengthen the position of the PM at the expense of the president. It looks as if this is the path he has chosen. Despite the very active opposition in Georgia, there seems little doubt that the National Movement party would be returned as the largest party in the legislature and the draft constitution is reported to include the provision that the prime minister will be selected by the party that has the greatest number of parliamentary seats. So, the fact that the president’s powers are likely to be reduced and that at least part of the the opposition was included in the constitution-making process should not hide the fact that the proposed amendments are likely to allow Saakashvili to remain in a position of authority. That said, the shift to premier-presidentialism would be welcome.