Parliament to Debate Rival Constitutional Bills on Electoral System Reform

Parliament is expected to launch at a session this week discussion of rival drafts of constitutional amendments on electoral system reform.

Both of the bills – one proposed by the GD parliamentary majority group and another one initiated by parliamentary and non-parliamentary opposition parties – envisage scrapping of the majoritarian component of the electoral system, but the main difference is over timing of the reform.

The opposition-backed bill proposes to carry out the reform immediately, ahead of the parliamentary elections, scheduled for October, and GD-backed bill offers to apply the reform for the post-2016 elections.

Support of at least 113 MPs is required for any constitutional amendment to be passed; none of the groups in the parliament has constitutional majority.

The parliamentary bureau decided on Monday to launch discussion of the both bills – either on Wednesday or Thursday, but dates are tentative and may change. Opposition lawmakers, as well as MPs from the Republican Party, which formally remains part of the GD majority group, wanted to fix an exact date, but MPs from Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GDDG) party appeared noncommittal.

Although the parliament may discuss the bills this week, it is not yet clear when the draft amendments will be put on vote. It will depend on number of MPs present in the chamber; the vote on a constitutional amendment can only be held if at least 113 lawmakers are attending session.

Approval of opposition-back bill is highly unlikely as it is opposed by the GDDG, the largest group in the Parliament.

Although lawmakers from the Republican Party, as well as National Forum, have signaled readiness to vote for the bill, it will not be passed without support of GDDG MPs. This bill is expected to be put on vote first; if it fails, which is highly likely, then some opposition lawmakers, specifically from the Free Democrats party, are going to vote in favor of the GD-proposed bill in order to have majoritarian component of the electoral system scrapped at least for post-2016 elections. Without support of UNM, the largest opposition group in the Parliament, the GD-proposed bill will not be passed; UNM has yet to announce whether it will support it or not.

Mixed Electoral System

Georgia currently has a mixed system in which 73 lawmakers are elected in 73 majoritarian, single-mandate constituencies (a candidate has to win over 50% of votes in order to be an outright winner otherwise a second round should be held), and rest 77 seats are allocated proportionally under the party-list contest among political parties, which clear 5% threshold.

Both of the constitutional bills envisage retaining nationwide party-list contest, but replacing majoritarian component with regional-proportional system, wherein political parties put forth lists of their MP candidates in each of the region separately. The opposition-backed bill offers to allocate 75 seats through nationwide party-list system and rest of the 75 seats to regional-proportional system. GD’s bill does not specify how the seats between these two components will be split and proposes to define separate amendments to the election code. GD’s bill also envisages lowering electoral threshold from 5 to 4% for the post-2016 elections.

Existing mixed electoral system with majoritarian and proportional components can potentially produce distribution of seats in Parliament different from those reflected in party-list election results.

Difference between distribution of seats and votes received in party-list contest was obvious in the previous Parliament, when then ruling UNM party was holding over 79% of seats although receiving slightly over 59% of votes in 2008 parliamentary elections. That was because UNM at the time won all but four single-mandate, majoritarian constituencies across the country.
 
But it was not the case in 2012 elections, when overall seats won by Georgian Dream coalition and UNM, both in majoritarian and proportional contests, mainly matched share of votes they won in party-list contest.

Mismatch, however, was evident in the 2014 local elections for Tbilisi City Council (Sakrebulo), where a similar system is applied, when although receiving 46% of votes in party-list contest, GD gained 74% of seats in Tbilisi Sakrebulo because of winning all but one single-mandate, majoritarian constituencies of the capital city.