Credit:Zeljko Heimer (FOTW Flags Of The World website at flagspot.net)

Election Date: May 21, 2008

At stake: Parliament

Background

A neighbour of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, Georgia proclaimed its independence from the Soviet Union on Apr. 6, 1991. The country was transformed into a large industrial and urban centre during its time as a Soviet republic.

After gaining independence, Georgia struggled with bringing a civil democracy to its feet. In 1995, Eduard Shevardnadze, who had served as the Soviet Union’s foreign minister under Mikhail Gorbachev, became president.

In 1994, Georgia signed a cooperation treaty with Russia authorizing three Russian military bases on Georgian soil. The deal also allowed Russians to train and equip the Georgian army.

Throughout the decade, Georgia fought separatist drives from the southern region of South Ossetia and the province of Abkhazia. In 1996, the government signed a deal to stop hostilities with South Ossetia.

In April 1997, the legislature pressed Russia to stop helping Abkhazia and South Ossetia. These two territories remain outside the control of the central government to this day and are ruled by de facto, unrecognized governments, supported by Russia.

In the 2000, the pro-Western Shevardnadze was re-elected with 80 per cent of the vote in a presidential election seen by international observers as marred by irregularities and fraud.

In 2001, Mikhail Saakashvili founded the United National Movement (UNM), a self-described reformist party advocating for good relations with the West and the restoration of Georgia’s control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The 2003 legislative ballot marked the beginning of new political instability in Georgia. On Jul. 7, Shevardnadze accepted a proposal from the United States government to reform Georgia’s electoral commission, thereby ensuring fair parliamentary elections. The recommendation—tabled by former U.S. state secretary James Baker—was regarded as a positive step. In late-July, the Georgian Parliament rejected the new composition of the country’s electoral commission, and criticism against Shevardnadze continued.

With Shevarnadze’s low popularity, and rifts that led to the disintegration of the ruling Citizen’s Union (SMK), government backers did not expect a positive outcome. The presence of 22 contending parties left no political organization with a majority in Parliament. After the Nov. 2 vote was completed, international observers led by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) expressed dissatisfaction over the "spectacular failures of the electoral administration."

Opposition organizations staged demonstrations in Tbilisi for several days, beginning on Nov. 4. The government rejected accusations of vote-rigging, claiming the count was slow because ballots had to be gathered in remote areas.

The Georgian Supreme Court partially annulled the November vote, which finally led to the resignation of Shevardnadze after opposition politicians requested his dismissal over electoral fraud.

Voters chose former justice minister and opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili as its new head of state on Jan. 4, 2004. The old medieval flag of Georgia was also re-adopted.

Saakashvili promised to seek better diplomatic relations with Russia while continuing with Georgia’s pro-Western orientation.

Georgian citizens headed to the polls again on Mar. 28, this time to allocate 150 proportional representation seats in Parliament. The results of the Nov. 2, 2003 election in the 85 single-seat constituencies were allowed to stand. Saakashvili’s coalition garnered 67.02 per cent of all cast ballots, followed by the Industrialists-New Rights alliance with 7.62 per cent.

Click Here for Georgia’s 2004 Legislative Election Tracker

Georgia is of strategic importance to the international community due to its participation in the ambitious Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which runs from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey. The pipeline opened in July 2006.

Georgia is currently working to become a full member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The country could become a member as early as 2009.

On Nov. 7, 2007, thousands of protesters took to the street in front of Georgia’s Parliament building to ask for the president’s resignation and an early presidential election. After a harsh confrontation between riot police and demonstrators, Saakashvili declared a national state of emergency for a period of 15 days. He later scheduled an early presidential ballot for January 2008, but refused to resign to his post.

The incident prompted the reaction of several political leaders around the world who had counted on Saakashvili as a Western-style politician. Heads of state, including the United States’ George W. Bush, called for the president to end the state of emergency and condemned the government’s use of force against protesters.

Voting took place on Jan. 5. Final results gave Saakashvili 53.47 per cent of the vote, enough for a first round victory. He was sworn in for a new term on Jan. 20.

2008 Parliamentary Election

On Mar. 21, Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili set May 21 as the date for the legislative ballot.

On that same day, Georgian legislators passed a new electoral law that sets new guidelines for the parliamentary ballot, with 75 seats chosen under the party-list system and 75 seats in single-seat constituencies. A candidate needs to secure at least 30 per cent of the vote to be declared the outright winner. Opposition leaders claim the system favours Saakashvili’s governing United National Movement Party (UNM).

On Mar. 26, leaders from several opposition parties ended a 17-day long hunger strike without gaining any of the demands they sought. The strike had begun when the government opposed an agreement that would have changed the distribution of Parliament, with 100 seats elected by regional party lists, and 50 seats for candidates elected in first-past-the-post races.

On Mar. 25, just one day before the hunger strike was called off, Koba Davitashvil—the leader of Party of People—warned the president against rigging the legislative election, saying, "Saakashvili declared war against us and we accept this challenge. (…) If the May 21 parliamentary elections are rigged, like the January 5 [presidential election] was, the opposition will call for a people’s rebellion. (…) It won’t be a velvet revolution."

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