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The Public Defender: “peculiarities of the regions were not taken into account while composing election districts”

September 7, 2016
 
Giorgi Janelidze

The Public Defender’s Office, for the first time in the history of independent Georgia, will observe the 2016 Parliamentary Elections under its mandate. On August 25, Ucha Nanuashvili, the Public Defender, spoke about the upcoming elections and the action plan of their office during the meeting with the representatives of the NGO in the hotel Courtyard Marriott. After the meeting, the Public Defender answered several questions of www.humanrights.ge.  

- The Public Defender observes the elections under its mandate for the first time. What concrete plans do you have?

- The Public Defender’s Office [PDO] does not have right to act as an observer on the Election Day. The Ombudsman’s Office plans to establish mobile groups in all regions of Georgia and react to all observed election violations. We also start the project, within which we will respond to the violations during pre-election period and on the Election Day, including monitoring the election-related disputes in the court. We intend to cover as many regions as possible. Consequently, we will have opportunity to use our current human  recourses, and also engage other people in the project, who directly monitor the elections. 

- The Constitutional Court satisfied your and Mikheil Sharashidze’s common plea regarding the division of the election districts. The majority of the society agrees with the reform, but they also see miscarriages. What do you think, how correct is it, to unite Ninotsminda and Akhalkalaki election districts or Tkibuli and Terjola election districts; or unification of villages with different ethnic groups under one election district?  

- It can be said that the old system was discriminative. 5000 and 150 000 voters both had one MP. The Constitutional Court took progressive decision, in order to make the process fairer. Besides, we demanded to create a model, which will change the system in the future. Unfortunately, the MPs did not consider our recommendations about many issues, including some questions regarding the composition of single mandate districts. For instance, the geographical area, peculiarities in certain regions, including the regions inhabited by ethnic minorities or high-land regions. Generally, those peculiarities shall be taken into account, but it was not done, unfortunately. In fact, there was artificial division and creation of the borders and districts. Because of it, the interest of the population is neglected and it creates serious problems. It is important, to overview the process of single mandate districts’ composition and to take the existing peculiarities into account. Firstly, I underline again the mountainous regions and those with ethnic minorities or which create common geographical area. There are several regions in the country. Therefore, the interest of the population shall be maximally respected instead similar artificial and formal division, which, unfortunately, took place after the amendments of the law. 

- The new political center Girchi refused to fulfill your recommendation/proposal to remove the election video clip from internet. Girchi claimed that there were no discriminative elements. What comment would you make?

- We disseminated the announcement and recommended the political organization to remove the video clip from internet, because, unfortunately, the advertisement violates the rights of certain group of people. It fosters the discriminative approach towards aged people. Consequently, we did not say the clip was discriminative itself, but similar advertisements, disseminated through internet and mass media, violates the rights of the group of people, because supports creation of certain stereotypes and empowers hostile and discriminative treatment towards them within the society. It is sad, that the political organization did not fulfill our recommendations. The aged people are really under threat that they will be discriminated during the pre-election period. 

- How would you evaluate the election environment, in terms of provocations and conflict episodes? How is the pre-election environment protected from the incidents like the confrontations in Kortskheli?

- Unfortunately, there were a lot of similar incidents during the pre-election and election period during previous elections. Law enforcement bodies did not respond adequately. We made an announcement regarding the Kortskheli incident, where we called on the law enforcement bodies to respond adequately, but the engagement of the police (especially in the first stage) was zero, late and in fact, the violators were not punished. We can speak about encouragement of the aggression in this case, when there is impunity. Therefore, I hope it will be the first and the last case and such kind of incidents will never repeat. However, of course, nobody can be sure. Wherever incidents occur, the most important is the police responded promptly that will be a preventive mechanism in order to avoid similar facts of violence during the pre-election period. 

- The election registration of the political organization Centrists was canceled a while ago. CEC and the government accuse each other in the registration of the pro-Russian organization. How would you evaluate the situation and what mechanisms are needed in order to avoid similar misunderstandings in future? 

- It demonstrates that the election legislation needs improvement. There are a lot of miscarriages. Therefore, the process again proved that the legislation needs amendments in general; also the activities of CEC must be regulated and more should be done in order to make the functions of each institution or player clear in the process. During the discussions, everybody blames each other and in the end the decision was taken, which raised questions in the society. To avoid the repetition of similar facts, the legislation must be as coherent to international standards as possible. Unfortunately, it has not been done yet. 

- How are the country and the society prepared not to fraud elections?

- I think the elections have been conducted quite democratically recently. We can say there is tangible progress – we speak about last presidential and local self-government elections, where at some extend we had free environment. Despite few violations, including harassment, the progress in compare to prior years is visible. But, I think, it is a process – the society is also developing, the role of the government is also important. Therefore, I think, the preliminary work is done to conduct less problematic elections, to avoid cases which happened in previous years. However, time will show everything. That’s why it is important that the society was mobilized, it will be NGOs or local or international organizations. Media must be actively involved in broadcasting of the processes and monitoring. Consequently, a lot depends on the role and activities of each member of the society. 

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