Georgia’s Electoral System to Face Overhaul

The Georgian Government plans to make significant changes to the electoral system once the autumn 2016 elections are over, in order, they say, to create a more "competitive and equal election environment”.

Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili met the media yesterday to introduce the intention to reform. The current system- a majoritarian one - over-represents voters from small districts by giving them one Member of Parliament each. The number of voters in a district can vary significantly, meaning that, at present, the strength of a single vote in a larger district is weightier than that of a vote in a lesser represented electoral district. 

PM Garibashvili announced that this imbalance will be corrected prior to the 2016 elections by merging or splitting districts as appropriate and according to size.

"We plan to conduct the 2016 autumn parliamentary elections under the current mixed system, in which, as per the Constitutional Court's decision, the current imbalance between the quantities of voters in majoritarian districts will be considerably reduced and also a 50 percent barrier will be imposed,” the PM said.

The Government’s ultimate goal is to move to a proportional electoral system for parliamentary elections and comes following the May 28 ruling by the Georgian Constitutional Court that the country’s electoral system, in particular its majoritarian element, undermines the equality of voting and needs to be changed.

Speaker of Parliament David Usupashvili explained that making such a change would be inadvisable before the next elections and so it was determined to act only following the 2016 vote: "Drastic changes are not desirable when elections are already at the doorstep," he said.