Cory Welt's blog on Georgian democracy

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Noted US expert on Georgian affairs Cory Welt has established a blog on Georgia's stuttering attempts to introduce democratic reform.

The most recent entry is an examination of the UNM's tactics and motivations in withdrawing from the round table talks on the electoral code: Welt suggests that a 40% threshold would be a reasonable compreomise.

He also raises the interesting question of why the UNM have insisted on such a low threshold. Of course, the bottom line here is one of party advantage over democracy: the UNM just could not win without massive cheating (not that that would bother them too much) in Tbilisi if the winning candidate was required to secure a majority - but Greenberg and Rosner's polling on Ugulava must be pretty bad that they have to insist on a 30% threshold.

Irakli Alasania has indicated that he'll make his announcement on his next moves next week: if he runs - and he's surely the leading opposition candidate - he'll be entering a contest where his opponent has bent the rules massively to stop him, but he'll also know that his opponent has acted out of weakness.

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