Opposition requests Ombudsperson to send electoral reform bill to OSCE
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Wednesday, December 4
About 30 opposition parties, including "European Georgia", "National Movement", "Lelo", "Victorious Georgia", Tako Charkviani's "Law and Justice", Nino Burjanadze's "Democratic Movement-United Georgia", "Movement of Building", “Girchi”, ”Labor Party”, draft constitutional requirements for 2020 Parliamentary Elections. The parties say they will register the bill in parliament in the coming days and are requesting Georgian Public Defender Nino Lomjaria to send the bill to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) for evaluations.
The draft of the opposition parties offers: “1. Parliament consists of 77 members elected by the proportional system and 73 members elected by the majoritarian system. 2. As a result of proportional system elections, the mandates of the MPs shall be distributed among the political parties and election blocs that receive at least 3% of the votes cast. 3. The rules and conditions for running for elections, as well as the rules for the distribution of seats for MPs, shall be determined by election law.”
"We have developed a Georgian modification of the electoral system based on the German model”, Giorgi Vashadze, leader of the New Georgia Party, said at a joint news conference of opposition party leaders.
As Vashadze noted, if the OSCE /ODIHR has any questions or opinions regarding the draft law, they are ready to consider them.
Vashadze told reporters that the model developed by them is consistent with the Georgian constitution, expresses public opinion, gives preference to the proportional system and considers Georgian reality.
"The novelty of all this is that votes will be proportionally distributed among candidates; the majoritarian system will be maintained, but there will be multi-mandate majoritarian constituencies - 6, 7 or 8-mandate constituencies. Each voter will have one vote and therefore, no political force will be able to seize," he said.
The ruling party says that the electoral model offered by the opposition for the 2020 elections contradicts the Georgian constitution. The opposition says it will wait for the ODIHR’s assessment of the bill and its conclusion whether or not the bill is in line with the Georgian Constitution.
The bill was drafted after the rejection of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party proposed election bill on November 14, which suggested the early transition to a fully proportional electoral system starting from 2020 instead of scheduled 2024.
Lomjaria says that she is ready to send the bill to ODIHR after it is registered in the legislative body, "as it is a mandatory procedure."
She added that ODIHR is aware that they "intend to send the bill to them." However, the bill should be registered beforehand.
