ABOLISHION OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN GEORGIA

PanARMENIAN.Net - "Right Opposition-Industrialists-New Rights" bloc strongly objects to the reform proposed by the government, claiming that the abolition of village and community councils "contradicts to the principles of democracy, the requirements of the European charter on "self-governance" and human rights." However, the oppositionists forget to mention another important aspect connected with the ethnic minorities and their rights. The reform will be very unfavorable for the inhabitants of Armenian villages, located in the Azeri populated Kvemo-Qartly region. Quite a number of Armenian villages are located also in Marneuli and Bolnisi provinces. In order to solve some administrative problems an Armenian living for instance in Shahumyan village, will have to go to Marneuli regional center and apply to an Azeri official. It is hard to believe that the latter will always be objective dealing with an Armenian. Recently the tension between Armenians and Azeris in this region has notably decreased, but it has not vanished. In the same Shahumyan village, which is surrounded by Azeri villages, people still remember how in 90s they managed to defend their right to live on their own land only thanks to the self-sacrificing nature of the defense detachment members who successfully repulsed the attacks of the neighbors. Now they will have to rely on the civil conscience of those with whom they fought. Nevertheless, national hostility may not be the only reason for problems. Difficulties may occur just because of language difference. In this situation, it would be better even to give more rights to village councils and not liquidate them.

The abolition of local self-governance bodies will make the inhabitants of Armenian villages more unprotected and finally bring to population outflow. To some extent, the same can be said about our compatriots living in Akhaltsikha and Tsalka regions that have mixed Georgian-Armenian and Georgian-Greek-Armenian population. For the sake of justice, it is worth mentioning that the reform may also cause problems for the inhabitants of Georgian and Svanish villages of Akhalkalaki region where 91 percent of the population are Armenians. Immigrants who have settled here in early 90s from time to time occur in tense relations with regional authorities. Thank God, the two parties so far had few causes to contact. Now there will be much more causes for that.

It is obvious that centralization of power is taking place in Georgia. Abolition of village councils and self-governance bodies will not strengthen regional authorities. Appointed by the center and not controlled by the people themselves, village elders will fully depend on regional administrations where the idea of national politics is sometimes quite peculiar. For instance if we trust to Russian REGNUM information agency, till recently, out of 34 members of the regional administration of Samtskhe-Djavakhetia there was only one Armenian. It is worth mentioning that 50 percents of the population of Samtskhe-Djavakhetia are Armenians.

The reform proposed by the premier has a lot of enemies in Georgia. Oppositionists think that the proposal of Zurab Nogaidely contradicts to the promises given by the leaders of the ruling "National movement". Half a year ago when Shevardnadze's administration proposed the draft, which enabled the president to appoint village elders not included in village councils, the "National movement" regarded that as an infringement on democracy. At that time, the head of "National movement" parliamentary group Kote Kemularia stated that in case of getting to power his party would insist on electing village elders. Now Mr. Kemularia occupies the post of the vice premier and nothing prevents him to keep his promise. Instead of that, the government advances a law, which restrains local governance even more. This is not what the people of Georgia expected from the new rulers…