Presentation on promoting women’s access to electoral finances by Zurab Kharatishvili, Chair of the Central Electoral Commission, Georgia presented at UNDP Regional Forum on Equal participation in decision-making, Istanbul, 16 November, Session VI: An enabling environment for women’s electoral participation- the role of Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs)

1. CENTRAL ELECTION COMMISSION OF GEORGIA
Political Finance as a Driver
for Women Candidates
REGIONAL FORUM ON
“EQUAL PARTICIPATION IN DECISION-MAKING
By Zurab Kharatishvili, Chair of the Central Election Commission, Georgia
Istanbul
November 16, 2011

2. Certain Picture of Gender Affairs
Women in Georgia face a reality filled with contradictions. On one hand,
they have access to education, work actively in civil society organizations,
and run small businesses, but on the other, society still considers the major
duty for a woman to be taking care of her children and household. Such
traditional practices and attitudes leave little room for women to actively
engage and advance in the public sphere.
The political arena remains largely dominated by men in Georgia.
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3. Certain Picture of Gender Affairs (Cont’d)
Women are especially underrepresented in all types of politics — at both
the local and national levels, and in the legislative and executive branches.
At present, after the democratic reforms witnessed during recent years,
women MPs comprise just 6% of the representatives in Parliament and
there are three women ministers in the government.
Georgia ranks among the lowest participating States in the OSCE region in
terms of women’s representation in parliament. Women’s under-
representation seriously compromises the democratic political development
of a society, while the systematic inclusion of women serves to strengthen
policy effectiveness and expand the political agenda.
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5. Status of Affairs in the Georgian EMB
The CEC members/staff composition is typical for the Georgian state and
political institutions.
CEC staff itself is structured in the manner of balancing gender equality:
» 50/50 head persons out of the 8 departments within the CEC;
» women representativeness is enhancing in the lower levels of the
structure.
On the other hand, there is an only woman out of the 13 the CEC members
appointed by the parliament and political parties.
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6. Legal Status of Gender Affairs in Georgia
On September 22, 1994, Georgia joined the Convention on Elimination of all
types of Discrimination Against Women – CEDAW.
Georgia periodically presents the report on general information of the
women situation in the country to the Committee for its review,
assessments, recommendations, and concerns. Women NGOs present
alternative reports, simultaneously.
The Parliament of Georgia passed a Gender Equality Law on 27 March 2010.
The legislation provides for the establishment of a national women’s
machinery, the enhancement of women’s security, equality in the labour
market and the strengthening of women’s political participation. The law
also introduces gender-responsive planning and budgeting on the part of
the government.
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7. Key Issues Relating to Women’s Participation in the
Democratic Development of Georgia
The right of women to participate in political life is guaranteed by
abovementioned international convention and national legislation, but
transforming an abstract right into a reality requires hard work on the
ground due to following reasons:
» Legislative regulations are mostly declarative in nature. Legislation is
neutral towards gender issues, creating an environment of indirect
discrimination in terms of gender;
» Women’s interests and incentives to become actively involved in the
political sphere are low. This fact is attributed to:
 social conditions;
 patriarchal society; and
 political environment.
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8. Key Issues Relating to Women’s Participation in the
Democratic Development of Georgia (Cont’d)
» Political parties generally have a low level of internal democracy. Parties
have no internal party regulations to increase women’s representation
and their promotion both within internal party structures and in
carrying out the parties’ political activities;
» There is a lack of awareness among political party leaders regarding the
resources, capacities and potential of women within their own parties as
well as the number of women voters;
» Women’s representation is also influenced by election systems. The
existing practice has shown that proportional election system is
particularly effective in increasing women’s representation, due to
greater electoral incentives to develop a candidate list that is balanced
in terms of representation of different interests and groups.
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9. Latest Efforts to Effect Georgia's Political Development
The Central Electoral Commission of Georgia, the Office for Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-
operation in Europe (OSCE/ODIHR), the International Foundation for
Electoral Systems (IFES) and the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty
Democracy (NIMD) convened a Roundtable to address the issues of
women’s participation in political and electoral processes on June 30, 2011
with the broad participation of Georgian political parties, women political
actors, non-governmental organizations, international donor and
development agencies, gender and political experts, and the Georgian
media.
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10. Conclusions of the Roundtable on Women’s
Participation in Political Life
There are number of approaches that civil society and political activists can
provide incentives to political parties to increase women’s participation,
including:
» the measures and strategies that political parties can adopt to
strengthen internal party democracy and women’s participation;
» the legislation actively encouraging and supporting women’s
participation in political activities mainly focused on quote rules.
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11. The Georgian EMB Method of Approach to the Affair
The Central Election Commission of Georgia raised its attitude to evaluating
effective tools of regulate and coordinate gender equality issue.
The quote is effective for the countries with the proportional electoral
system, but for the Georgian mixed one where half of the MPs are elected
by the majority voted system, the above approach can effect only on the 50
percent MP members elected by the proportional list.
As a result the Georgian EMB approach to the affair is based on designing
and implementation the financial incentive in political financing motivating
political parties defend gender equality.
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12. The Georgian EMB Approach to the Affair (Cont’d)
The major funding source of political parties in Georgia is the state
financing. Fundraising value is combined to the number of votes received by
a particular party on elections. Our approach implicates three components:
» apart from gained votes by political parties, the state fundraising to be
tied to a gender balance defence by a particular political entity. For
instance, if a political party gains seats in the parliament by proportional
and major voted system jointly and there are no less than 30%
representatives of each of both women and men, the party gets N%
additional state finance;
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13. The Georgian EMB Approach to the Affair (Cont’d)
» temporary special measures such as internal party democracy
regulations to be included in the legislation and meaning development
clear and transparent guidelines for the recruitment of party members,
the recruitment and selection of party candidates, and the allocation of
party resources to members and candidates. These guidelines should
include specific provisions to ensure equality of opportunity for women
and men in all party activities and processes, including candidate
recruitment, participation in decision-making bodies such as
nomination/selection boards, and equal access to party resources. It is
equally important that both women and men are involved in all party
processes, including planning and budgeting.
» the implementation of these two rules above should be accompanied
intensive campaign increasing public awareness of gender issues
contributing to political parties’ development as they will receive more
support from society.
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14. Main Feasible Outputs from the Come up
Linking political finance with mandatory internal party democracy elements
to the proportion of women candidates is a possible means of providing
incentives for political parties to increase the number of women put
forward as candidates on party lists.
We believe our approach will empower and motivate political parties to be
encouraged in enhancing women’s representation and stimulate changing
the overall situation in elective representation to balance the gender
equality within the organs and entities and, consequently in the political
life.
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15. საქართველოს ცენტრალური საარჩევნო კომისია
CENTRAL ELECTION COMMISSION OF GEORGIA
Thank you!
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