Georgian Dream set to eliminate self-governing towns

Seven out of Georgia’s 12 self-governing towns may soon be stripped of their status as such, in a move that its initiator, the ruling Georgian Dream party, says should ease the burden of administrative expenses on local budgets and which the opposition sees as the government’s attempt to head off unsupportive voting constituencies.

While no relevant legislation has been drafted as yet, discussions on the plan are already underway in the Ministry for Regional Development and Infrastructure. The towns that have been targeted are: Zugdidi, Ozurgeti, Gori, Telavi, Akhaltsikhe, Mtskheta and Ambrolauri.

Interestingly, it was after Georgian Dream won the parliamentary election and came into power in 2012 that the towns became self-governing. When campaigning, it had criticized the then president Mikheil Saakashvili for what it said was centralizing too much power in Tbilisi and had promised to allow more discretion and independence to provinces.

Accordingly, in 2013, the government implemented the “Main principles of decentralization and development of self-government” scheme. Shortly afterwards, in 2014, the parliament passed a “self-government code.” A reform then followed that saw the overall number of self-governing towns increased. Each town got to have its own incomes and expenses and a government directly elected by its citizens.

Still, critics say that Tbilisi has never stopped interfering in the towns’ discretionary authority, and that now, as if that were not enough, it is taking it away from them altogether.

The government has cited cost-effectiveness considerations to defend its plan. By reducing the number of self-governing towns, we will cut administrative expenses [the sums that are now spent to support local administrations] in half, it said.

The opposition party, National Movement, links the plan to the local government elections that are due to be held in October this year. They said that If the seven towns go to the polls in their current capacity as self-governing entities, Georgian Dream will end up losing its positions there.

“Direct elections aren’t good for the government, because it has lost the trust of the voters,” said Roman Gotsiridze, a member of the National Movement.

Georgian NGOs have denounced the plan too. “The reduction of the number of self-governing towns is a major setback not only for the self-government reform, but for the country’s democratic development as a whole,” reads a statement signed by 120 non-governmental organizations.

Kote Kandelaki of the International Centre for Civic Culture said thriftiness was not a good reason to go back to centralized government.

“Indeed, democratic institutions are very expensive to support, but it would be utterly wrong to economize at their expense,” he told Radio Liberty. “Economizing on a very small scale might be acceptable, but even that could be fraught with irreversible consequences.”