RULING PARTY AGAINST CHANGING ELECTORAL SYSTEM,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TBILISI 000403

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR DAS BRYZA, EUR/CARC, AND DRL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/10/2018
TAGS: KDEM PGOV PREL PHUM GG
SUBJECT: RULING PARTY AGAINST CHANGING ELECTORAL SYSTEM,
AGAIN

Classified By: AMBASSADOR JOHN F. TEFFT. REASONS: 1.4 (B) AND (D).


1. (C) Summary: The Ambassador and other Embassy officials
raised the issue of the newly proposed Parliamentary
electoral system with key MPs on March 11. Speaker
Burjanadze told Ambassador Tefft that some in the opposition
are now calling for a return to the "winner-take-all" system,
although the most recent proposal to have 75 single-seat
majoritarian seats and 75 party list seats is now on its
second reading in Parliament. Separately, influential MP
Giga Bokeria told PolEcon Chief that there is "zero chance"
that the Parliament would change the proposal. He claimed
the ruling party had bent over backwards to try to get the
opposition to negotiate a deal -- including by releasing one
of the November 7 protesters who was caught on tape smashing
a rock over the head of a policeman -- only to have the
opposition miss two opportunities to vote on it. Separately,
Bokeria said that the election date would be set within two
weeks. He reiterated the seriousness of Russia's lifting of
the sanctions on Abkhazia, calling it the "next chapter of
annexation" and saying that Georgia would not tolerate it.
End summary.


2. (C) On March 11, Ambassador raised with Speaker Burjanadze
the newly proposed and controversial Parliamentary electoral
system. Burjanadze said that some in the opposition are now
calling for Parliament to return to the "winner-take-all"
system. Still, the Parliament's proposal for 75 single-seat
majoritarian seats and 75 party list seats was already in its
second hearing. Although she indicated that negotiations
continued, influential MP Giga Bokeria told PolEcon Chief the
same day that there is "zero chance" that Parliament would
change its proposal. He claimed that the ruling United
National Movement (UNM) had bent over backwards to try to get
the opposition to negotiate a deal -- including by releasing
one of the November 7 protesters who was caught on tape
smashing a rock over the head of a policeman -- only to have
a the opposition miss two opportunities to change the system
by failing to show up to vote on it.


3. (C) Bokeria said that UNM had serious opposition within
his own party to the earlier proposal for 50 single-seat
majoritarian seats and 100 party list seats as there had been
representatives to Parliament from all 75 districts since
Georgia's independence. These people did not want to give up
their seats. We gave Bokeria a copy of an analysis of the
district populations (sent to EUR/CARC) which showed that
under the proposal the UNM could win 88 percent of the seats
with only 54 percent of the vote assuming district's vote
roughly in the same proportions as the presidential
elections. This likely result was also due in part to the
fact that the pro-UNM rural districts have more seats
relative to their populations than urban areas. Bokeria
conceded that the earlier proposal was better for the
opposition, speculating that it would have given the
opposition 40 seats out of 150 rather than the likely 35 they
will obtain under the current one. When we suggested that
this current proposal would likely perpetuate the dominance
of a single party, which was not helpful to Georgian
democracy overall, Bokeria countered that the problem is that
reform would stop should the opposition gain enough seats to
block ruling party votes. A real opposition to UNM, he said,
would come out of its break-up, rather than out of the
existing opposition parties.


4. (C) On elections more generally, we gave Bokeria a copy of
the OSCE Ambassadors letter and election checklist (sent to
EUR/CARC). He said that the elections would be set within
two weeks, with the elections to take place 60 days from that
date. Although the electoral code was not complete, it would
be done by the time the election is called. We urged Bokeria
against changing the protocols in ways which would make them
less transparent, by for example, taking off data such as the
number of registered voters. Bokeria said that the
Parliament is working to simplify the protocols by placing
everything on one page but would not take away information.
He said that there would also be opposition representation in
the District Election Commissions (a key demand of the
opposition) and that they would eliminate same-day
registrants, which were the source of a lot of problems
during vote tabulation.


5. (C) Bokeria raised Russia's March 7 lifting of sanctions
on Abkhazia, calling the step "very, very serious." He saw
the move the "next chapter of annexation" and said that
Georgia would not tolerate it. When asked whether he thought
things between Russia and Georgia would be better under
President Medvedev, Bokeria said he had been optimistic but
now believed that the whole recent meeting between Presidents
Putin and Saakashvili took place in order to allow Russia to

TBILISI 00000403 002 OF 002


say that it had warned Georgia that Russia was going to lift
sanctions on Abkhazia.
TEFFT