Georgian dream closer to constitutional majority

Achieving a constitutional majority has been the major target for the Georgian Dream coalition since it gained victory in the parliamentary elections in October, 2012. According to the observations of some analysts and politicians, the Georgian Dream is getting closer to filling the necessary gap to obtain a constitutional majority in the parliament.

Just recently, yet another MP, Anzor Bolkvadze, from the Khulo region (Adjara) left the parliamentary minority so that currently, out of the total 150 MPs, the United National Movement (UNM) has only 52 seats left. The coalition needs only 2 more votes to achieve the desired two-thirds of the total number of MPs for the constitutional majority.

Not all those who have abandoned the UNM have joined the coalition however. Most of them remain as independent members. However, they are loyal to the ruling team. The Georgian Dream majority in the parliament currently unites 86 members.

Analysts predict that for the presidential elections of October 2013, things will change enough so that the Georgian Dream will have reached the desired number of MPs to claim a majority.

Such a balance of forces in the parliament will be of vital importance for the Georgian Dream, which has to immediately implement the necessary amendments to the state constitution. But this should all take place before the presidential elections. Otherwise, the new formula of the constitution will come into force, according to which, the constitutional amendments could be adopted by three-fourths of the MPs – 113 votes, which would make it almost impossible to achieve in the current parliament.

It is also urgently necessary to implement another constitutional change that envisages granting high political positions to people with dual citizenship. If this is not the case, from January of 2014, Bidzina Ivanishvili cannot remain as the Prime Minister.

The battle for the remaining 2 votes will be fierce, as much depends on the configuration of the votes.