Parliament Should Support Transition to Proportional Electoral System
The Public Defender is considering the transition to a proportional electoral system in the human rights context and expresses support for it, since it ensures the equality of the weight of votes, less lost votes, proportional transformation of votes into parliamentary mandates and political pluralism in the Parliament.
In the 2017 report, in the context of the right to vote, the Public Defender emphasized the importance of the electoral system reform aimed at eliminating disproportinal transformation of votes into mandates, but negatively assessed the postponement of the transition to the proportional electoral system from 2020 to 2024.[1]
Bearing the above in mind, the readiness of the ruling party to introduce the proportional electoral system by the 2020 parliamentary elections and the initiative of 93 members of the parliamentary majority to amend the constitution were an undoubted step forward in terms of protection of political rights of the country and its citizens. However, yesterday's debate and discussions in the Parliament showed that, unfortunately, there are risks of breaking the promise and rejecting the constitutional draft law. At yesterday's session, 16 members of the majority, 12 of whom are initiators of the draft law, made negative assessments and asked questions about the draft law[2] and the voting was postponed for today.
The Public Defender calls on the Parliament to support the transition to a proportional electoral system by the 2020 parliamentary elections, which will promote political pluralism and proportional representation of people's will and election results in the Parliament.
[1] Report of the Public Defender of Georgia on the Situation of Human Rights and Freedoms in Georgia, 2017, p. 183. Available at: <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gcWDvqloj-PTKW5FWBczRKSLdQrKkoO9/view>
[2] Of these 16 MPs, 12 were elected under majoritarian system and 4 – according to the party list. 9 members of the majority supported the bill. 4 of them were elected under majoritarian system and 5 - according to the party list.
