President Saakashvili nominated three candidates for Central Election Commission (CEC) chairmanship on January 12.

Levan Tarkhnishvili, who has been the CEC chair since October, 2007, is among the nominated candidates.

Two others are Otar Sichinava, a judge of the Constitutional Court and Zurab Kharatishvili, who was a member of a group within CEC, which was monitoring political parties’ electoral campaign funds in 2008 elections.

President Saakashvili selected the three candidates from the list named by various civil society organizations at a meeting in Batumi on January 11. The list included fourteen potential candidates, including Eka Siradze, an executive director of an election watchdog International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, who was backed by about a dozen of civil society organizations.

At a meeting between the President and a group of civil society organizations on January 11, Levan Tarkhnishvili was nominated by an influential think-tank, Liberty Institute; Otar Sichinava by – New Generation-New Initiative (nGnI) and Zurab Kharatishvili by – ALPE Foundation. 

According to amendment to the election code passed by the Parliament on January 12, the opposition members of CEC have to elect chairman from proposed three candidates before January 14, otherwise the issue will move into the Parliament and lawmakers will elect one from the three candidates in seven days.

Representatives of following parties in CEC are eligible to take part in electing the chairman: Republican Party (part of Alliance for Georgia); Conservative Party; Labor Party; Industrialists; Christian-Democratic Movement (a leading party in the parliamentary minority) and On Our Own (part of parliamentary minority).

At least four votes are required for a candidate to take the CEC chairmanship.

Tina Khidasheli of the Republican Party strongly criticized the President’s choice, especially Tarkhnishvili’s nomination and said that her party’s representative in the CEC would not vote for any of the proposed candidacies. Christian-Democratic Movement said its representative would not vote for Tarkhnishvili and would make final decision which candidate to support after holding meetings with them.