Ruling party: all our MPs to vote proportional electoral system for the 2020 race
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, July 2
The Georgian Dream ruling party says that all its, “up to 100 MPs,” are unanimous to vote proportional voting in the 2020 parliamentary elections, the change the ruling party accepted to calm crowds in Tbilisi and stop the rallies sparked by the presence of Russian MPs in the Georgian parliament on June 20.
The ruling party also has plans to change the state-funding system for political parties, which allows the parties to overcome the election threshold have and maintain budgetary funding for several years.
The party said during the presentation of election changes on Monday that approval of the constitutional changes will require several votes from the opposition, as the ruling party lost the constitutional majority, at least 113 MPs, earlier this year when several legislators quit the party.
Former Parliament Speaker of Georgia Irakli Kobakhidze says that a zero threshold in the elections, which was offered by the ruling party as a one-time step for only the upcoming race, equals 0,67 percent of votes.
“If a party receives 0.67 percent of votes, it will gain one seat in the legislative body,” Kobakhidze said.
He stated that the changes will be introduced in only one section of the Georgian constitution.
“It concerns the section which reads that 2020 parliamentary elections should have been conducted with a mixed electoral system, majoritarian and party-list voting, and the country should have moved to the fully proportional elections from 2024.
“If the amendments are approved, the section will read that 2020 elections will be held with the proportional vote and only that year the election threshold will be zero. The threshold for all the following parliamentary elections will be five percent,” Kobakhidze said.
The opposition refused to attend the presentation, saying that they approve the election-related changes, but one demand of the demonstrations in Tbilisi remains unfulfilled – the resignation of Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia for the dispersal of June 20 rally in Tbilisi, which took place after a Russian MP from Russia took the seat of the Georgian parliamentary speaker during an assembly.
As of now, Georgia has a mixed electoral system with 77 seats in its 150-member parliament allocated proportionally under the party-list among parties or electoral blocs which clear a 5 percent threshold in the race.
The remaining 73 MPs are elected in 73 single-member districts, known as “majoritarian” mandates. A majoritarian MP candidate has to gain more than 50 percent of votes to take a seat in the legislative body.
The new constitution of Georgia, and which came into play after last year’s presidential elections, reads that Georgia moved to fully proportional elections from 2024, which have been hailed as “unfair” by the opposition.
