Kobakhidze Says Ruling party Ready to Adopt Constitutional Amendments to Lower Threshold From 5% to 2%
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Friday, July 8, 2022
The ruling party is ready to adopt constitutional amendments to lower the threshold from 5% to 2% for 2024 and all subsequent parliamentary elections if the country receives EU candidate status. Chairman of the ruling party Georgian Dream, Irakli Kobakhidze spoke about this at a briefing held in the party.
“No later than one month after the EU grants Georgia candidate status in December, the Parliament of Georgia will adopt a constitutional law in all 3 readings, according to which the 2024 and subsequent parliamentary elections will be held with a fully-proportional system and a 2% electoral threshold. We accept this political commitment from the political council of the party and the parliamentary majority before the European Council and the European Commission.”
He explained to the media that since the topic of threshold is not among the 12 conditions that must be met for candidate status, they do not plan to lower the threshold until a decision is made by the EU.
“Setting a relatively low threshold, which means giving a certain opportunity to the ‘National Movement’, can be worth it to us only if we get some very important benefits for the country with this step,” he clarified.
Kobakhidze says that a high electoral threshold is appropriate in conditions of high political polarization.
“Reducing polarization also seriously reduces the risks associated with lowering the threshold. Therefore, there is a direct logical connection between obtaining candidate status, reducing polarization, and the feasibility of setting a lower threshold,” he said.
The Parliament of Georgia adopted the constitutional amendments related to the elections in the first reading on September 7, 2021. According to this document, the next 2 parliamentary elections were to be held with a 2% threshold. According to the same document, the situation of the parliamentary opposition was improving as well, it would be possible to create a faction by 4 MPs, while today 7 MPs are needed.
Lowering the electoral threshold was a part of the so-called It April 19 agreement, which the ruling party declared void after 100 days due to the largest opposition party not joining the agreement and saying that it would not return to the document.
Meanwhile, the Georgian Parliament is set to start the early work for fulfilling the 12-point outline established by the European Union for granting the country the membership candidate status, with relevant sessions of the lawmaking body.
The first session in the work was held by the Committee on Procedural Issues and Rules of the Parliament. A Parliamentary working group will work on a bill on deoligarchization - related to one of the points in the EU outline - while a monitoring group will be drawn up to promote reducing the polarization of the political environment of the country.
Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, on Wednesday said the EU was ready to grant the membership candidate status to Georgia once the priorities outlined by the bloc are addressed.
