Less time to adopt new constitution

The Georgian parliament adopted the new draft constitution after the first and second readings. The third remains and will presumably will take place before the end of October and according to the schedule, MPs will soon receive the final conclusion of Venice commission, which due to be ready by mid-October. However it is unclear whether these recommendations will be fully accepted. Several analysts believe that while the new constitution is, for the most part better than the current one, it is far from ideal.

Most of the Georgian population is indifferent about the text of the new constitution. The non-parliament Opposition has been critical of the new constitution but it did not even try to convene any kind of protest rallies against it. The main bone of contention is the possibility of the current Georgian president becoming Prime Minister however while this is not ruled out, the parliamentary opposition has still been somewhat involved in the process of adopting the new constitution.

There were some concessions made by the ruling party towards the parliamentary opposition’s demands, although the amendments made were minor. The major articles for the new constitution when it is adopted will come to force on December 1, 2013.

Ruling party MPs have been rather critical of the Venice commission’s activities and several comments have been made in this regard. Ruling party members are very enthusiastic and optimistic labeling the new constitution as a forward step in the democratic development of the country.

According to the new constitution Parliament will have extra rights and powers; for instance it will be responsible for forming the government. This allows the possibility to form a coalition government giving more chances to different political forces. Practically the decision which will be taken at the end of October is already determined. However some analysts think that not everything written on the paper will be implemented when the constitution comes into force. They think that even with the current constitution Georgia could have built a better system with the goodwill of the authorities.