The CEC

Anxiety over how exactly to draft a gender policy with the Central Election Commission of Georgia  has been forefront in my mind as I prepared for this trip. "With" was where it all collapsed. How does one write with others full stop let alone with government officials?

Day two with the election commission and we have done pretty well actually. A diehard NGO-er at heart, I planned the first day for a mix of training, consultations with civil society and listening (on the part of me) to the CEC's priorities.

I was given a tip just before I left that I should present them with a draft and have them wordsmith and translate to Georgian rather than show up with a blank slate. This turned out to be a key tip.

At the end of day one I went back to the hotel and took the boilerplate gender policy I had (of course I had it, I'm a gender and elections specialist) and tweaked it to points made in my listening sessions and added in Georgia-unique points.

Voila! Or at least as we tucked into drafting this morning I was met with very little resistance. We made it through the introduction, weaving in Georgian history lessons (for me) and gender equality missives (for them).

We went through the guiding principles section, getting stuck on "affirmative action strategies" as controversial and likely to meet resistance from the broader group. I agreed and changed it, but refusing to equivocate on "discrimination." It is god damn discrimination!

I didn't say it like that.

So, it turns out drafting with is not so difficult if you have a game plan. Such is life.

Post script: Because everyone was feeling good about our progress I was let go early. With this time I went to a local craft market, bought some jewelry AND a painting, but resisted the kitsch (although those interlocking kissing coffee mugs were tempting). I ventured out for dinner and wound up in a heavenly, absolutely heavenly restaurant, Sabatono, where the wine on tap was divine, the trout with walnut sauce was lovely and the sauteéd mushrooms were delicious. I love a foodie town.