Elections Guide
Six political groups will compete for a total of 1 736 seats in 69 local municipal councils, or as they are called in Georgian Sakrebulos, throughout Georgia. The other five will be two-mandate constituencies:
The number of seats in each Sakrebulo varies from 14 (in Kodori, breakaway Abkhazia, as well as in Eredvi, Kurta and Tigvi in breakaway South Ossetia) to 41 (in Zugdidi, western Georgia) depending on size of the regional municipality.
10 members of the Sakrebulo in all the regional municipalities (except of Tbilisi; read about the capital city below) will be elected through a proportional party-list system, while rest of the seats will be occupied by those elected through a majoritarian system in each of the village of the regional municipality.
As a result the number of total seats in a particular regional municipality will depend on the number of villages incorporated in a municipality.
Sakrebulos in major cities – Batumi in the Adjara Autonomous Republic; Rustavi to the south of Tbilisi, Poti and Kutaisi, both in the western Georgia – will have 15 seats in the Sakrebulo each. Ten of these will be elected through a party-list system, and the remaining 5 members through a majoritarian system; these towns will therefore have five single-mandate constituencies each. The newly-elected Sakrebulos in these cities are then responsible for electing mayors. Only in Tbilisi does the mayoral candidate have to come from among the members of the Sakrebulo.
Tbilisi
In Tbilisi there will be a total of 37 seats in the Sakrebulo. 25 members will be elected through a first-past-the-post, “winner takes all” majoritarian system in Tbilisi’s ten constituencies.
Five out of ten elections districts in Tbilisi will be three-mandate constituencies:
1. Saburtalo
2. Isani
3. Samgori
4. Nadzaladevi
5. Gldani
1. Mtatsminda
2. Vake
3. Krtsanisi
4. Chugureti
5. Didube
In respect of the majoritarian system, a party must garner at least 1/3 of the total ballots cast in a particular constituency to endorse its candidates in the Tbilisi Sakrebulo.
The remaining 12 seats will be distributed through a so called “compensatory list” from among parties that garner at least 4% of votes in all ten constituencies of Tbilisi.
The 37-member City Council will then elect the Tbilisi Mayor from among its members. The candidate will have to win at least 2/3 of the total votes (25 votes) in the council.
Local self-governance bodies throughout Georgia will be elected for 4 year terms, including city mayors.
