The Georgian parliament adopted a constitutional majority vote (117 for and 3 against) in the third final reading, according to which the parliamentary elections on October 31, 2020 will be held according to a predominantly proportional system: citizens of the country will elect 120 deputies according to party lists and 30 in single-majority counties.
Until now, starting from the first multi-party elections on October 28, 1990, half of the deputies in the 150-seat parliament were elected by the proportional system, and the second half by the majority. In 2024, the highest legislative body will be fully elected by party lists.
According to the same amendments, during the autumn elections a one-percent “electoral barrier” for political parties will operate.
The reform carried out in Georgia guarantees the multi-party system of the future parliament: several opposition parties will certainly be represented in it. Moreover, it is possible that for the formation of the government of the ruling party Bidzina Ivanishvili “Georgian Dream” (GM), which is considered the favorite of the election race, it will be necessary to form a coalition with other political forces.
Among them, for sure, there will be no party of the former president Mikheil Saakashvili “Unified National Movement” (UNM), as well as the “European Georgia” (EG) of ex-speaker David Bakradze. Both parties promised that under no circumstances would they “enter into a coalition with the Russian oligarch Ivanishvili.”
Today, June 29, the UDT and EG boycotted a vote on constitutional reform on the pretext that the authorities still have not released the owner of the opposition television channel Main Channel, Georgy Rurua. At the same time, opponents of the ruling party referred to the agreement of March 8, reached through the mediation of US Ambassador Kelly Degnan and other Western diplomats. According to the opposition, the document signed at the ambassador’s residence allegedly provided for the release of Rurua.
German Ambassador to Tbilisi Hubert Knirsch, considered one of the “architects” of the March 8 agreement, said in an interview with Georgian Public Television that George Rurua was “not mentioned at all.” In response, one of the leaders of the United Opposition, the founder of the Labor Party (PL), Shalva Natelashvili, called the experienced German diplomat a “shameful man,” accused him of a corruption deal with the “oligarch Ivanishvili,” and even attacked the FRG by demanding from Berlin compensation “for 400 thousand Georgians who died on the fronts of World War II unleashed by Germany.”
Read more about the reform in the publication “Kommersant” “Georgian politics is gaining proportions.”
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