Parliament Fails to Elect CEC Chair and Members
The Parliament of Georgia failed to elect the chairperson and two members of the Central Election Commission (CEC) in a special parliamentary session held on December 22.
Tamar Alafidze, one of the two candidates for CEC chairperson, received no MP support, while the other candidate – Revaz Egadze received only one MP vote.
The four candidates nominated for the two vacant CEC membership positions, Giorgi Isakadze, Giorgi Marsagishvili, Kristine Kajaia, and Natia Tsiptauri, received no support from the MPs as well.
To elect the CEC Chair and members for the five-year term, a two-thirds supermajority, or 100 votes, was required.
On July 13, Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili announced the competition for the CEC chairperson and two members. A total of five candidates expressed interest in serving as chairperson of the CEC, and ten candidates expressed interest in the membership.
The competition commission presented only three candidates to the President for the position of the CEC chairperson, among them was the acting chairperson, Giorgi Kalandarishvili, who participated in this competition for the third time but was not selected by the President. On August 5, the President submitted only Alapishvili and Egadze’s candidacies to Parliament.
As for the candidates for CEC membership, the competition commission selected 4 out of 10, of which the president selected Kristine Kajaia and Levan Isakadze for only one vacant position, and announced a re-competition for the other. As a result of the re-competition, the President selected the candidacies of Natia Tsiptauri and Giorgi Marsagishvili and presented them to the Parliament on August 26.
At that time, in response, Kalandarishvili said, “this decision [of the President] was somewhat unexpected.” “I don’t know about the circumstances and motives that formed the basis of this particular decision, especially in light of the fact that I have already been nominated by the President twice… Therefore, it would be interesting to hear the explanations that the administration will have in this direction if there are any,” he added.
The Presidential administration explained on August 6 that the decision not to re-nominate Kalandarishvili, or any other interim members, was caused by the fact that the Parliament previously failed to endorse candidacies with required 2/3 majority twice, resulting ad interim, six months appointments, according to the law.
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