Democratic Breakthroughs and Revolutions in Five Post-Communist ...

33been cleaned up. Freedom House’s 2006 Nation in Transit survey gives credit toGeorgia for enhancing local government capability, launching a struggle againstcorruption, and improving the protection of human rights. Freedom House registeredno change in Georgia’s election administration, civil society, media and nationalgovernance. One reason that civil society activity had declined following the RoseRevolution is because ‘half’ of the civil society network, according to Nodia, movedinto government. In Ukraine, Freedom House registered a vastly improved mediaenvironment with the ending of censorship, greater transparency in government andstate activities and policies and a free election environment. Nevertheless, problemareas exist. Georgia lacks a strong opposition, partly because of the high sevenpercent threshold to enter parliament, and the judiciary is subject to politicalinterference. Political parties in Georgia and Ukraine remain weak and tied topersonality politics, rather than to ideologies. This is especially true on the radicalwing of democratic oppositions that came to power in 2003-2004, Saakashvili andTymoshenko.Democratisation has proceeded faster in post-communist states which haveintroduced parliamentary systems, systems that are common place in central-easternEurope and the three Baltic states. During post-communist transitions, abuse of office,election fraud and corruption has tended to occur around the executive. Of the twelveCIS states, ten have super presidential systems with emasculated parliaments; theexceptions are a parliamentary-presidential system in Ukraine and a fullyparliamentary system in Moldova. Alone among the three states which experienceddemocratic revolutions has been Georgia which moved to a superpresidential system amonth after Saakashvili’s election.