Opposition, NGOs Criticize Ruling Party on Election System
The recent announcement of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party over moving to fully proportional elections from 2020 to 2024 was followed by harsh criticism from opposition parties and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).
Georgia has a mixed electoral system through which voters can cast two ballots – one for a party in a nationwide vote, and another for a specific candidate in a respective single-member constituency.
After the nationwide discussions and large-scale consensus over moving to wholly proportional elections, which was the main demand of the opposition, several days ago, the ruling party announced that the changes in the election system would not take place until 2024. Instead, the GD offered to reduce the 5 percent threshold to 3 percent.
Parliamentary minority Movement for Freedom-European Georgia says that the ruling team “cheated” society and the Venice Commission when they refused to change the election system.
“When GD was in opposition, they were the ones requesting the change to the current election system, now they are against doing it…The ruling party promised us they would take into account the remarks of the Venice Commission but they cheated us,” Giga Bokeria, one of the leaders of the European Georgia, stressed.
Opposition party United National Movement (UNM) claims the ruling team acted based on its political interests.
“We do not approve the package of amendments to the Constitution as most of the changes will go into force only after eight years, as with the election system,” Roman Gotsiridze from the UNM stated.
Both opposition parties, and also the third parliamentary opposition the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia, have boycotted the process of discussions on the constitutional amendments in Parliament.
The ruling party, which has the constitutional majority with 116 MPs in a 150-seat legislative body, intends to discuss the amendments even without participation of the opposition.
The leader of the parliamentary majority, Archil Talakvadze, underlined that Georgia will definitely have a proportional election system but not during the next elections.
“Georgia will move to a more democratic electoral system and this will be reflected in the following elections because we are ready to reduce the election threshold,” Talakvadze said.
Georgia’s 12 leading NGOs issued a joint statement in which they condemn Georgian Dream’s decision about moving to proportional elections after eight years.
“This decision is unacceptable and unfair…We positively assessed the introduction of a proportional system and this position was shared by the Venice Commission,” the statement of NGOs reads.
The NGOs claim that after four month’s work with the Constitutional Commission and Venice Commission, the “unilateral” decision of the ruling party to delay introducing the proportional election system is “inadequate.”
“Without the involvement of the interested sides and on the basis of their narrow political interests, Georgian Dream changed the agreed decision to move to proportional election system,” the statement reads.
Thea Morrison