ISFED Applies to the Constitutional Commission
International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) presented its opinions to the Constitutional Commission about deficiencies in the election system and recommended Constitutional amendments.
After the local self-government elections, the electoral reform should focus on electoral system changes. Notably, the existing electoral system has long been criticized by non-governmental organizations and political parties due to its inability to translate votes into seat numbers proportionately, due to high risk of losing votes and the lack of protection of equality of votes. Further, European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) and OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) recommend that the electoral system for both parliamentary and local self-government elections be reviewed in order to ensure the equality of suffrage.
Considering that there is not much time left before the next parliamentary elections, we believe that works to reform the election system must commence immediately to ensure fair and competitive election environment for the upcoming elections.
We urge the State Constitutional Commission of Georgia to start discussing systemic electoral changes. To tackle the existing problems it is important to launch the process of reforming the election system at the Constitutional level and to establish new electoral system that can solve the existing challenges most effectively; i.e. ensure that votes are translated into seat number proportionately, risk of losing votes is decreased to minimum, women participation in politics is promoted, voter confidence is increased and proportionate representation of small parties in the parliament of Georgia and in local self-governing authorities is ensured.