PACE Monitors Call for Talks Without Preconditions

Monitors from Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) called on the authorities and the opposition to launch “an open and genuine dialogue” without preconditions.

An information note drafted by co-rapporteurs on Georgia from PACE’s monitoring committee, Matyas Eorsi and Kastriot Islami, which was drafted mainly based on their fact-finding visit to Georgia in late March, was made public on April 30.
 
It says that the demand of opposition parties, which are organizers of ongoing protests, to launch a dialogue on terms of President Saakashvili’s resignation “is not conducive to the start of such a dialogue.”

“On the other hand, the a priori exclusion of the possibility of early elections as a topic for negotiations by the authorities is equally not conducive to a genuine dialogue. An agreement on the question of early elections should be one of the objectives of the dialogue and not a precondition for it,” PACE monitors said in their information note.

Although noting as a principle that “rapid successions of pre-term elections are not beneficial for the democratic stability,” the monitors have also said that they “”fully recognize the right and wish” of citizens to express their view on the leadership “after a major national crises such as a war.”

“Without wanting to pass a judgment on the question of whether or not early elections should take place in Georgia, we would like to stress that, in our opinion, elections should only be considered in Georgia once there is a clear agreement between all political forces regarding the constitutional division of powers, the electoral system and the electoral legislation (the rules of the game). If not, elections will only serve to strengthen the current political polarisation,” it reads.

“No preconditions for such [open and genuine] dialogue should be made and no subject should be a priori off-limits for negotiation. We call upon all political forces to agree on the establishment of a dialogue based on these principles,” the monitors said.

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