Election of New CEC Chair Likely to Move to Parliament

It is most likely that the Parliament will have to take a decision about who will chair the Central Election Commission (CEC), as three opposition parties having seats in CEC said they would boycott the election process, as they oppose all three candidacies offered by President Saakashvili.

President Saakashvili nominated on January 12 three candidates for the post: Levan Tarkhnishvili, an acting CEC chairman who has been on the post since October, 2007; Otar Sichinava, a judge of the Constitutional Court and Zurab Kharatishvili, a member of public broadcaster’s board of trustees, who was a member of a group within CEC, which was monitoring political parties’ electoral campaign funds in 2008 elections.

According to the law six opposition members of the CEC should elect one out of three proposed by the President no later than January 14, otherwise then it will be up to the Parliament to do that in next seven days.

A candidate needs at least four votes out of total six opposition CEC members for being elected as the chairman. 

Republican Party (part of Alliance for Georgia, also including New Rights and Free Democrats-Our Georgia); Labor Party and Conservative Party, who have representatives in CEC, said they would boycott the CEC election process.

They said that all three candidates, especially Levan Tarkhnishvili, are loyal to the authorities.

Other three parties, eligible to participate in the voting – Christian-Democratic Movement; On Our Own (both part of the parliamentary minority) and Industrialists said they were strongly against of Levan Tarkhnishvili’s nomination, but also said that they had yet to take a decision which could be their favorite candidate out of two remaining.

President Saakashvili selected the three candidates from the list named by various civil society organizations at a meeting in Batumi on January 11. The list included fourteen potential candidates, including Eka Siradze, an executive director of an election watchdog International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, who was backed by about a dozen of civil society organizations.

Manana Manjgaladze, a spokesperson for the President, defended Tarkhnishvili’s nomination among the candidates by saying on January 13 that Tarkhnishvili “managed to establish a strong, professional team and to create a system while serving as CEC chairman.”

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