PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili told government members on February 11, that parliamentary elections in October should be held at “the highest standards.”
He said that it was one of the main issues discussed during his talks with the European Commission officials when he visited Brussels on February 9-10.
“We have guaranteed that Georgia will hold the 2016 parliamentary elections at the highest standards. This is vitally important for us that all the components of democratic elections be observed by us. Our European partners are expecting from us to meet high standards – bar is set high,” the PM said at a government meeting.
“It is very important to spread this stance across the political spectrum in Georgia in order to make all the stakeholders stick to these high standards,” he said.
Meanwhile on February 11, the parliamentary committee for legal affairs started discussion of draft of constitutional amendments, backed by parliamentary and non-parliamentary opposition parties, maintaining party-list component of the electoral system, but replacing of the majoritarian component with regional-proportional system, involving multi-mandate constituencies in the provinces ahead of this year’s elections.
The GD parliamentary majority group has its draft of constitutional changes according to which this proposal should be introduced not for the upcoming elections, but for the post-2016 parliamentary polls. GD ruling coalition has no constitutional majority of 113 MPs and its proposal will not be passed without support of opposition lawmakers.
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