The Georgian Dreams reject suggestion to move to fully majoritarian system
By Inga Kakulia
Wednesday, November 20
Amidst the protests in the city, with demands regarding the promised shift into the proportional electoral system, the member of the Georgian Dream, Dimitri Khundadze proposed the idea of switching to the majoritarian system completely. As expected the statement caused a lot of backlash and responses from the opposition and the protesters as well as a member of the ruling majority.
In his statement to the media, Khundadze said that he had made a mistake supporting initiating constitutional amendments for moving the country to a proportional electoral system. According to him, it is time to correct this mistake and move the country to a fully majoritarian system.
As Khundadze told the reporters, the country should move to a fully majoritarian system by 2020. "The source of power is the people, and in the current situation and reality, the majoritarian system is the best way for people to make choices, to directly elect their own representatives, and to have a fully constituent parliament. Such systems are in America, Great Britain, France… The majoritarian MPs will be well-known and will not be able to hide behind any party whose names will be quite different. Sometimes voters are confused as to which politician is behind the party. The Georgian Dream is proud that the country is moving to a proportional system from 2024, but there is nothing to be proud of, "said Khundadze.
According to the member of the parliament, his initiative has the support of 3 other MPs- Dachi Beraia, Irakli Shiolashvili and Merab Kvaraia.
But it seems like the country won’t be switching to Khundadze’s proposed system because soon after this statement the Chairman of the Georgian Dream Party, Mamuka Mdinaradze publicly discarded the possibility of moving to the majoritarian system in 2020. According to Mdinaradze, a political decision has already been made to move to a proportional electoral system in 2024, and it is not appropriate to talk about other models in the current situation.
“I think there will be a very heated discussion within the team, because in my opinion some very wrong ideas have been voiced, even considering the possibility of opening a discussion around this topic. Even the opening of the discussion in this regard, I personally find it to be absolutely unnecessary. Understandably, all models, including the American, British, are legitimate, but now I do not think it’s appropriate to be talking about them right now, since the Georgian Dream and the Georgian Parliament, as a result of the constitutional reform led by Irakli Kobakhidze, made the right decision and that decision is called a proportional system, " said Mdinaradze.
A group of majoritarian MPs is gathering signatures to move to a fully majoritarian system. This is stated in the statement of the majoritarian MPs regarding their new initiative. Considering that the initiative has very little support as of right now it’s probable that this discussion won’t be happening anytime soon.
