Zurabs of the New Georgia
// Zurab Noghaideli to Replace Zurab Zhvania
Personnel
The Georgian parliament confirmed Zurab Noghaideli as prime minister on Thursday. He presented the parliament a program written by his deceased predecessor Zurab Zhvania and an administration that is identical to Zhvania's. Before that vote, the deputies had overwhelmingly approved a bill to reduce their numbers to 150.
The extraordinary session of the parliament on Thursday was called to discussed the candidate for prime minister, confirm the new administration and make changes to the Constitution to reduce the size of the parliament by half. They began with the Constitution.
There had been 235 deputies in the Georgian legislative body. Of them, 150 were elected from party lists and 75 elected from single-mandate constituencies, representing the 75 district of Georgia controlled by Tbilisi. In addition, ten deputies from Abkhazia elected in 1992 joined the parliament every four years.
Idea of reducing the size of the parliament came up while Eduard Shevardnadze was still in power. NGOs were claiming that 235 legislators for such a tiny country was excessive and their number had to be decreased to no more than 150. That move was approved in a referendum.
Ironically, the referendum took place on November 2, 2003, that is, simultaneously with the parliamentary elections whose results led to the Revolution of Roses. A majority of 95 percent voted in the referendum to reduce the number of deputies. The results of the parliamentary elections were declared invalid after the “revolution,” but no one disputed the referendum results. At first they simply forgot them. Last week, however, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili announced to the nation that the political elite does not have the right to ignore the wishes of the people, and the Constitution had to be changed.
From now on, the Georgian parliament will be made up of 150 deputies, 100 of whom will be elected from party lists and 50 of whom from multi-candidate districts. These changes will be implemented in 2008, when new parliamentary elections are held. It is possible that the deputies will debate the foundation of a two-house parliament, setting up a senate of representatives of the regions, including Abkhazia and South Ossetia. No final decision has been made yet though.
After the easy passage of the constitutional change, the parliament moved on to the candidacy of Noghaideli. The new prime minister gave a programmatic speech, emphasizing the whole time that it was Zhvania's program, that he had been a member of Zhvania's team and his friend and that he intended to continue his predecessor's course. Noghaideli said that, in the future, in even 20 or 30 years, “historians studying our period will be amazed at how much Zurab Zhvania, and we with him, accomplished in 2004. It was in 2004 that we halted our plunge into the abyss and laid the foundation for the building of a new Georgia.”
The parliamentary opposition, the New Rightists in particular, were unreceptive to Noghaideli and refused to participate in the vote, saying that they do not wish to share responsibility with the parliamentary majority for the future of the administration. The Conservatives, Saakashvili's former comrades, also voted against the new prime minister, accusing the administration of breaking pre-revolutionary and pre-election promises on tax relief for small business and payment and payment of deposits from Soviet times. However, that did not prevent the parliamentary majority from confirming and Zhvania's cabinet with new Prime Minster Noghaideli at its head.
Vladimir Novikov, Tbilisi
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 18, 2005
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