NEWS: Georgia News Digest 04-14-08

A service of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies

Attached PDF file easily navigable with Bookmarks pane
Archives and associated files at groups.google.com/group/genewsfiles (from February 2008) and groups.google.com/group/genews (before February 2008)

1. Parliamentary election season
By Robyn E. Angley
ISCIP Analyst, April 10With the opposition’s hunger strike at an end, attention is shifting to the parliamentary elections scheduled for May 21. The opposition parties, never particularly unified and subject to constant reconfiguration, have shifted, for the moment, to a nine-party format in order to contest the elections. Two opposition parties, the Republicans and Shalva Natelashvili’s Labor Party, have decided to campaign separately (although the Republicans are wavering whether to join the opposition bloc). Indicative of the challenge of bringing together so many disparate parties (and of the dependence of Georgian politics on personalities) is the nine-party opposition bloc’s party list. The list is topped by former opposition presidential candidate Levan Gachechiladze, Davit Gamkrelidze (New Rights Party), Konstantine Gamsakhurdia (Freedom Party), Zviad Dzidziguri (Conservative Party), Koba Davitashvili (Party of People). (1)
The opposition parties are hoping to loosen the ruling party’s hold of on parliament. Saakashvili’s United National Movement has exercised an extraordinary amount of power in the current parliament and pushed through reforms, sometimes without debate, which likely would have met opposition in a more diverse legislative climate. Currently members of the ruling party chair 12 out of 13 parliamentary committees, with the remaining chairmanship going to Nikoloz Lekishvili, who was elected by an initiative group. Including the deputy chairpersons, of the 37 chair and deputy chair positions documented on the parliamentary website, all but three are occupied by proclaimed ruling party members, while the other three are held by MPs elected by initiative groups. (2)
Despite the seeming “don’t trust anyone over 40” mentality of the current government, several of the committee heads have considerable experience. Elene Tevdoradze, who maintained her position as chair of the Committee on Human Rights after Shevardnadze’s resignation, is the oldest committee leader at the age of 70 and one of three female committee chiefs. Several other committee chairs are also holdovers from the Shevardnadze years, among them former Mayor of Tbilisi and Prime Minister Nikoloz Lekishvili and former Ambassador to Germany Konstantine Gabashvili. Despite the famed youth of many of Georgia’s new leaders, the average age of Georgia’s current parliamentary chairpersons is 48.6. (3) Within the committees, the affiliations of the various committee members are more diverse than the leadership.
The 21-member Budget and Finance Committee, for instance, has only 12 ruling party members.The popularity of the opposition in Tbilisi offers a likely possibility that the next parliament will have a more developed opposition than in the immediate post-Rose Revolution euphoria. However, the extreme diversity of the nine-party opposition makes successful cooperation on issues other than attacking President Mikheil Saakashvili or Speaker of the Parliament Nino Burdjanadze extremely unlikely. Nonetheless, even the presence of a more vocal opposition in the next parliament would be an improvement in Georgia’s political process.
NATO MAP denied, but eventual membership held out The NATO summit in Bucharest failed to result in a Membership Action Plan (MAP) for Georgia, although the alliance did state that both Ukraine and Georgia will become NATO members at some point and set December as the next time that Georgia’s progress would be assessed. (4) President Saakashvili has painted the summit as a foreign policy success despite the failure to achieve the long desired MAP, welcoming the statement that Georgia will eventually be a NATO member as an even bigger achievement. The decision followed on the heels of indications by both France (or, at least, the French Premier) and Germany that they would not support a decision to award a MAP to Georgia; for the French Premier, at least, the decision was based explicitly on not disturbing the “balance of power” between Europe and Russia. (5) The Bucharest summit is further evidence of Russia’s new effort to achieve ascendancy on the crest of its energy sector and strong executive.
(1) “Election configuration shaped,” Civil Georgia, 7 Apr 08 via http://www.civil.ge/eng/detail.php?id=17535.
(2) “Parliament of Georgia,” 8 Apr 08 via http://www.parliament.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=1.
(3) Author’s calculation based on biographical data and committee data available on Parliament of Georgia website via http://www.parliament.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=1.
(4) “NATO decisions on open-door policy,” NATO website, 3 Apr 08 via http://www.nato.int/docu/update/2008/04-april/e0403h.html.
(5) “France against Georgia’s MAP,” Civil Georgia, 1 Apr 08 via http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=17496.

2. International observers start parliamentary elections mission
3. OSCE monitors hit the ground in Georgia
4. NDI presented code of conduct for party activists during parliamentary elections
5. Speaker urges consultations with opposition on constitutional changes
6. ‘Don’t scare investors’ – Saakashvili tells opposition
7. Grand rotation
Here is the list of majoritarian candidates presented by the parties by this time: georgiatoday.ge/article_details.php?id=4809

8. Businessmen to run as majoritarian MP contenders
9. Ruling party presented candidates for majoritarian MPs in Samtskhe-Javakheti Region
10. Republican Party stresses its moderate credentials
11. Young Republicans rally against ruling party
12. “Republicans” advise ruling party to stick to code of conduct
13. Political union 'Imedi' boycotts parliamentary elections
14. Three youths attacked the Christian Democratic Movement’s office
15. Gachechiladze runs for majoritarian MP
16. United opposition begins pre-election campaign outside country
17. Labor Party accuses ruling party of plans to forge elections
18. TV hopeful opposition will cease boycotting its programmes
19. Public TV or 'newspeak' - you be the judge!
20. Members of GPB Board of Trustees meet with the ruling party’s and oppositional electoral block’s representatives
21. Maestro applies unusual form of protest
22. Press briefing by the NATO Spokesman James Appathurai [excerpt]
23. Kyiv, Tbilisi face more NATO obstacles than simply Russian resistance
24. Unjustified optimism. Gennady Zyuganov interview [excerpt]
25. Did Ukraine and Georgia lose a NATO battle, or the war?
26. NATO has not changed since Soviet times, says senior Russian MP
27. Georgia to stay on NATO path despite threats from Russia
28. Georgia concerned by Moscow's threats of retaliation to NATO accession
29. Russian pundits disagree on response to Ukrainian, Georgian NATO aspirations
30. Harsh Russian statements on Ukraine, Georgia, NATO are harmful to Russia – Nikonov
31. video: Russia's elite debate foreign policy
32. Some grist for the mill between Moscow and Washington [excerpt]
33. Georgian spring
34. Putin’s defeat in Bucharest
35. Baluevsky’s statement is direct military threat to Georgia
36. Nobody can decide security matters for Georgia, Ukraine – Kosachev
37. In the beginning was the word
38. Epistolary diplomacy: Russia views Tbilisi and Sokhumi through the same prism
39. President calls for dialogue with Abkhazians, Ossetians
40. Separatists reject re-integration offer
41. Sanakoyev meets with regional governor
42. State Minister demands revision of peacekeeping format
43. Georgia has right to unilaterally cease peacekeeping mission in Abkhazia
44. video: Georgia committed to Abkhazian autonomy
45. Tbilisi offers joint police with Abkhazia
46. Saakashvili tells ministers to work over Abkhaz peace plan
47. Broad autonomy to be offered to Abkhazia – Saakashvili
48. Georgia proposes creating Georgian-Abkhaz police to replace peacekeepers
49. Separatists hold emergency meeting
50. Separatist leader criticizes mediators' one-sided approach
51. OSCE shows unilateral approaches to Georgian-Abkhaz settlement – Bagapsh
52. Tbilisi outraged by priest's deportation from Abkhazia
53. Georgian priest expelled from Gali
54. Georgian priest beaten in breakaway Abkhazia
55. Minister says religious rights violated in breakaway Abkhazia
56. Minister warns of "ecological catastrophe" on Abkhazia's coastline
57. Kazakhstan not to lift CIS sanctions on Abkhazia
58. Research monkeys in a state of limbo
59. Press summary for Abkhazia 1-14 Apr 08
60. GUAM countries demand respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty
61. Georgia is interested in developing relations with Belarus
62. President visits a factory in Zestaponi
63. Prices on bread firm
64. Georgia’s state energy policy in the natural gas sector
65. Presentation of new pre-school education standards
66. Third employment program to launch in May
67. Nineteen issues to be considered at cabinet meeting on Saturday
68. Government to award Georgian rugby national team with GEL 100 000
69. Eka Beselia left for Paris to participate in hearings of Irakli Okruashvili’s case
70. Okruashvili’s defense lawyer to produce extra evidence in court
71. War of the oligarchs ensnares New Yorker
72. Lawyers plan more protests, denounce ‘traitors’
73. Studio Monitor presents another journalistic investigation
74. Tbilisi vice-mayor met young people studying tourism and professors
75. New Chairman of Tbilisi City Council elected
76. Ugulava opened one more foot-bridge in Tbilisi
77. Capital's City Council to elect new chair
78. Georgian soldiers repelled terrorist attack in Iraq
79. Sachkhere training center
80. Georgian statehood and the church of Georgia
81. World financial crisis has reached Georgia
82. Nineteen years later, April 9 still resonates
83. Pre-election xenophobia
84. New law potential threat to National Bank’s independence
85. New wireless internet service to come to Georgia
86. One in every neighborhood
87. Conference devoted to Armenian Georgian philology
88. DNA test helped to investigate criminal cases
89. paper: “Our Beer”: Ethnographic Brands in Postsocialist Georgia
90. paper: Myth and Morality in Tengiz Abuladze’s “Pokaianie (Repentance)”
91. National heroe's plural remains reburied

Jonathan Kulick, Ph.D., Director of Studies, Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, 3a Chitadze, Tbilisi 0108, Georgia (Republic), jonathan.kulick@gfsis.org, office: +995 32 47 35 55, mobile: +995 95 33 33 40, USA voicemail: 310.928.6814