Parties Geared Up for Elections

The lineup of parties competing in the October 5 local elections was finalized after the opposition New Rights Party announced on September 11 that it will be boycotting the elections. New Rights decided not to participate after failing to convince influential tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili to run for the office of Tbilisi mayor.

As a result only six political groups will compete for a total of 1 683 seats in 69 local municipal councils [Sakrebulos] throughout Georgia on October 5. Competing parties include the Labor Party, Georgia’s Way, Industrialists, Party of National Ideology and the ruling National Movement party, and an election bloc formed by the opposition Conservative and Republican parties 

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. (See the list of all 69 Sakrebulos and number of seats in each).

10 members of the Sakrebulo in each regional municipality 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 are then responsible for electing city mayors. Only in Tbilisi does the mayoral candidate have to come from among the members of the Sakrebulo.

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: Saburtalo; Isani; Samgori; Nadzaladevi and Gldani.

The other five will be two-mandate constituencies: Mtatsminda; Vake; Krtsanisi; Chugureti and 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 get 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 in the council.

Local self-governance bodies throughout Georgia will be elected for 4 year terms, including city mayors. 

Tbilisi, where about 1/3 of country’s voters reside, is the major target of all of the political parties running in the elections.

The five contenders running in the Tbilisi mayoral race are: Shalva Natelashvili, leader of the opposition Labor Party; Koba Davitashvili, nominated by an election coalition of the Republican and Conservative party; ex-Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili, who leads the Georgia’s Way opposition party; beer magnate Gogi Topadze, nominated by the Industrialist opposition party; and incumbent Mayor Gigi Ugulava, the candidate from the ruling National Movement party.