The Majoritarian Project: Informed Citizens and Accountable Government
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TI Georgia’s project "Informed Citizens and Accountable Government" strove to foster communication between majoritarian parliamentarians and their constituencies and promote public awareness of and input into the legislative process. To achieve these goals, TI Georgia, in cooperation with majoritarian MPs and their district office (bureau) representatives, conducted public meetings in three-month cycles in 57 districts in Georgia. At these meetings citizens received information about parliamentary developments over the last three months and its future plans. They also had the opportunity to inform their majoritarian MPs about their main concerns at the local level and share with him/her their opinions about Parliament’s work. As part of the project, TI Georgia also assessed majoritarian bureaus and administrative barriers to their work and conducted trainings for bureau staff to increase their competence.
In total, 188 public meetings were held, including 176 district and 12 regional meetings, with more than 5,000 participants in 57 districts within 9 regions in Georgia. These meetings were focused on the following laws: Tax Code, Privatization of State Owned Lands, Law on General Education, Law on Higher Education, Law on State Compensations and Academic Stipends, Law on Self Governance, Law on Local Budgets, Law on Local Elections, Law on Local Property, Election Code, Labor Code, Amendments to the Constitution, and the Venice Commission’s Opinion on the Amendments. In addition, the following were discussed during the meetings: manipulation of voting on legislation, MPs’ responsibilities, voters’ rights, election procedures, parliament’s oversight function, details of ongoing reforms among other issues.
In addition to organizing public meetings throughout the districts, TI Georgia prepared and disseminated public awareness-raising materials throughout Georgia in the Georgian and Russian languages. The materials included: Citizen’s Guidebook outlining the duties of MPs and the ways in which to communicate with them, a Voters’ Guide explaining voting procedures for the elections, a brochure on self-governance outlining the functions of local government bodies and citizens’ rights vis-à-vis the decision-making process at the local level, a brochure on pensions and compensation explaining the new regulations in these fields, a FAQs brochure on local election procedures, the self-governance system, the local budget, and local property which provided answers to the most frequently asked questions about these issues, leaflets on new traffic rules, a poster of nine important laws and MPs’ voting records on those laws, and a newspaper insert which included information on majoritarian MPs, such as their district and parliamentary activities, attendance during sessions, voting results, their financial and property disclosures during the last four years, transparency issues, a description of weaknesses in the legislation related to the work of majoritarian MPs, et al.
During project implementation TI Georgia conducted four trainings on five different topics for 59 bureau staff members. Participants spent a total of 7 days at the trainings. Aditianally, six one-day trainings were conducted for all majoritarian MPs’ bureau staff (excluding Tbilisi and Ajara).ation on majoritarian MPs, such as their district and parliamentary activities, attendance during sessions, voting results, their financial and property disclosures during the last four years, transparency issues, a description of weaknesses in the legislation related to the work of majoritarian MPs, et al.
During project implementation TI Georgia conducted four trainings on five different topics for 59 bureau staff members. Participants spent a total of 7 days at the trainings. Aditianally, six one-day trainings were conducted for all majoritarian MPs’ bureau staff (excluding Tbilisi and Ajara).