Parliamentary and non-parliamentary opposition meet with diplomatic corps
By Tea Mariamidze
Tuesday, October 6
The government intends to steal the results of the upcoming elections, which is why they reject to change majoritarian election system by 2016, stated governmental and non-governmental opposition at the meeting with diplomatic corps in parliament on October 5.
Electoral and Constitutional changes were discussed at the meeting. The representatives of the diplomatic corps were invited to the meeting of the Free Democrats to convince them that it is necessary to carry out changes in the electoral system before elections 2016.
It should be noted that during recent months, the opposition has been trying to oblige the government to implement changes in the election code, which means the rejection of the majoritarian election system (when the MP is elected by direct voting) and replacing it by a proportional method (when the parties receive the number of MP mandates proportional to the votes it gathered in the election).
The meeting was also attended by international and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
According Zurab Abashidze, a member of the Free Democrats, the party presented their visions about the electoral system to the diplomatic corps and the NGOs.
“As it is known, almost all political forces are united around the issue that regional-proportional elections must be held instead of majoritarian ones in the country. The government proposes that the reforms will be carried out in 2020, which is totally unacceptable for us,” he said.
The Secretary General of the New Rights party, Mamuka Katsitadze, stated that the government knows that the electoral system is faulty but “they want to appropriate more mandates by keeping the defective system.”
Eka Gigauri, the executive director of the NGO Transparency International Georgia, says that the changes should be carried out immediately if the government wants to establish high democratic standards in the country.
The majority does not intend to change its mind. They stated that it is impossible to carry out any changes by the 2016 elections due to the lack of time and the reforms will be made only in 2020.
“We are not going to steal the results of the elections because we are devoted to democratic principles, but it will be absolutely impossible to totally change the majoritarian election system into a proportional version so quickly. This is the reality,” Irakli Sesiashvili,the Parliamentary Defense and Security Committee Chairman stated after the meeting.
