Opposition Consults to Confront Majoritarian Election Rule

Opposition parties held late-night consultations on March 4 to discuss a coordinated response to a controversial proposal on electing majoritarian MPs, which was passed by Parliament with its first hearing earlier on the same day.

The talks, which included the eight party opposition bloc and the New Rights and Republican parties leaders, yielded no apparent immediate results. A concrete action plan is not expected until sometime on March 5.

MP Levan Berdzenishvili of the Republican Party told Civil.Ge on March 4, before the consultations had concluded, that an appeal would be brought to the Constitutional Court, as there had been no discussion of the proposed amendments prior to the vote. 

If approved on the second and third hearings, the number of majoritarian MPs in the new parliament will increase from 50 – as currently mandated in the constitution – to 75 and those elected through the proportional party-list system will go from 100 to 75.

“This proposal is not a tragedy in itself for the opposition,” MP Berdzenishvili said. “The opposition can challenge the ruling party in each of the 75 constituencies, but we will need to coordinate our actions, meaning that separate opposition parties should not compete with each other in the majoritarian elections and we should nominate candidates in each single-mandate constituency through mutual agreement.”