Nongovernmental Organizations Have Different Opinions about Election Day Set by the President

Interpresnews

Mikheil Saakashvili shall change the election date – director of the Center for the Study of Electoral and Political Technologies Kakha Kakhishvili told InterPressNews. Kakha Kakhishvili recommended the nongovernmental organizations working on the election issues to appeal against the president’s order, based on which the Election Day was set.

“The President shall change the election date. We already know from his 9-year governance that he never cared about the law. Unless he changes the date, he will finish his presidential term with fixing the Election Day in contradiction to the law. However, I call upon every organization, working on the election issues, to appeal against the President’s decree on fixing the election date, which was released through full ignorance of the Election Code norms,” Kakha Kakhishvili said. 

Besides that, Kakhishvili suggested parliamentary majority to be more attentive to this issue: if the Election Day is not correctly set, entire process will be illegal.”

In accordance to the Election Law, regular Elections, except for presidential elections, may be held on any day of the week. Article 6 of the Election Code states that “next elections, referendum, plebiscite, except presidential elections, can be held on any day of the week. The date of the elections shall be declared as a holiday.”

Kakhishvili clarified to InterPressNews that the aforementioned provision in the law means that the Election Day was incorrectly set on October 31 because it is Thursday.

Head of International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy Nino Lomjaria said that note in the Article 6 of the Election Code is a “legislation flaw” and stated that president is not obliged to change the election date - October 31.

Lomjaria told IPN that the norm which caused misunderstanding in the society was introduced to the law when Constitution requested to hold the presidential elections only on Sunday.

“This provision was first added to the Code when Constitution of Georgia required to hold presidential elections only on Sunday. In accordance to this norm, the Election Code was amended and presidential election was to be held only on Sunday. After the aforementioned norm was removed from the Constitution and the only requirement of the law was to hold the presidential election in October of 2013, the note in the Article 6 of the Election Code became just a legislative flaw because neither Constitution nor the Code offers any concrete day when the presidential election shall be definitely held. If we claim that election can be held on any day of the week, then there is a question – when shall it be held? – but there is no answer to it. Consequently, it is incorrect to interpret the Election Code as if presidential elections shall be held only on Sunday and it is not correct if it is fixed on Saturday or on Thursday because as I have already said there is no document setting concrete day for the presidential election,” Lomjaria said. 

Finally, she stated that due to aforementioned circumstances the decree issued by the President on the election date shall not be changed but the parliament shall either correct or completely remove this norm from the Election Code.