Democratization: Civil Society and Democratic Governance Activities In 2005, the ODIHR carried out activities in the following areas: k Promoting the development of political parties as democratic institutions; k Improving capacity for parliamentary reform; and k NGO participation in OSCE events. Democratic political parties are an integral part of a strong and healthy civil society and provide a natural venue for channelling citizens’ political interests and priorities in order for them to be reflected in the way their society is governed. This can only be achieved if stable, legitimate means of expression in the political process are ensured. Political parties also help to protect individual rights and maintain orderly, lawful, and open government; by aggregating, deliberating, and negotiating among competing demands, they tend to produce more consensual and sustainable policies and, hence, greater governability and legitimacy. While elections constitute the most visible expression of democratic choice, what happens between elections is crucial to sustaining and consolidating democracy. If elections provide legitimacy in form, they also mandate effective representation in substance. Effective representation can only be achieved if political frameworks provide a level playing field for competing parties and if parties themselves present participatory structures that allow their members — men and women — to be actively involved in their own governance on equal terms. Without this, there can be no competitive politics, and without competitive politics between elections, there is simply no democracy. In 2004, the ODIHR focused on how to follow up constructively on the democratic opening and momentum offered by the so-called Rose Revolution in Georgia. Strengthening the ANNUAL REPORT 2005 OSCE I. Promoting the development of political parties as democratic institutions political framework in order to put an end to the cyclical nature of regime change in Georgia was seen as important. In this context, a multi-party effort in which all parties were ready to take a critical look at themselves and the way they interact could strengthen Georgia’s democratic political framework. This recognition is what led to the ODIHR’s “Political Parties Interactive Assessment” pilot project in Georgia. Together with the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) and the Tbilisi-based Caucasus Institute for Peace, Development and Democracy (CIPDD), the ODIHR developed an analytical research methodology that would involve political parties in Georgia carrying out an interactive self-analysis. Throughout 2005, Georgia’s six main parties conducted, under close supervision and coaching by the three partners, a self-analysis exercise that concentrated on a variety of party-related issues. These included the raison d’être of their party, outreach and membership, women’s participation and input into party programmes, public party finances, minority and geopolitical issues, relations between parties and factions in parliament, and relations between parties and the state. This first year of activity in what is expected to be a long-term engagement by the ODIHR in Marianne Mikko, an Estonian member of the European Parliament, at an ODIHR conference on the institutional development of political parties in Georgia, Tbilisi, 17 March 2006. This was the second and final multiparty conference of a pilot project that took place throughout 2005. 31