Opposition representatives say they will fully support new electoral system
By Nika Gamtsemlidze
Wednesday, November 13
The parliamentary opposition says the majority of the Georgian Dream will not be given an excuse for maintaining a majoritarian electoral system.
“We won’t let the majority to speculate,” said the Chairman of the United National Movement (UNM), Roman Gotsiridze. According to him, in any case, he and his party will support the draft law initiated by the majority, but they will also stand by the initiative of the opposition and try to explain why their version is better.
European Georgia also intends to support the constitutional amendments initiated by the Georgian Dream.
As MP Zurab Chiaberashvili told reporters, European Georgia plans to support opposition’s bill as well, but “having heard that the majority will only support their own initiative, we won’t give them an excuse to throw away such important achievement for Georgian people.”
Former members of the parliamentary majority will also support the Georgian Dream bill. Independent MP Eka Beselia said that she will support the bill “so that the majority doesn’t reconsider the promise and the very important political statement regarding the transition to a proportional electoral system."
Beselia said that statements of the majority representatives saying that they think the initiative won’t have enough votes in Parliament is a bad sign. “I feel like Georgian Dream reconsidered transition to the proportional electoral system and they are trying to find a reason,” said Beselia.
Giorgi Kakhiani, a member of the parliamentary majority, said most of the majority's MPs will support the Georgian Dream bill. “Not everyone in the majority may support this initiative. Most of them will support the majority, of course, but without the support of the opposition we still do not have the required number of votes,” Kakhiani told reporters.
Only some representatives of the majority are opposed to the transition to a proportional electoral system. Kakha Okriashvili, being one of them, says that transition to the new system could lead to snap elections in 2021-2022. He hopes that 30-40 majoritarians will not support the constitutional changes proposed to change the electoral system and that the "project will fail".
Two drafts of constitutional amendments, which envisage the abolition of the majoritarian system, have been submitted to the Parliament of Georgia.
With the changes initiated by the Georgian Dream parliamentary majority, the elections in 2020 will be held in proportional order, with zero threshold and the creation of election blocs will be banned.
As for the constitutional amendments of 20 opposition parties signed by 200,000 citizens, parliamentary elections under the proportional system should be held at a 3% threshold and should the creation of election blocs should be allowed.
To pass, the bill needs the support of at least 113 MP’s in Georgia's 150-member parliament.
The ruling party has agreed to abolish the majoritarian system by 2020 as a result of protests that began on June 20. One of the demands of participants in anti-occupation rallies was to change the electoral system.
The Parliamentary Elections of Georgia are to be held in the October of 2020, as announced by the ruling party.
