Ruling party announces proposal of electoral amendments in September

The ruling Georgian Dream party MP Givi Mikanadze said on Thursday that a working group recently set to address electoral issues for Georgia’s EU candidacy, was scheduled to present electoral amendments in September. 

“The members of the working group have presented specific comments and proposals. In particular, the recommendations refer to the direction in which the changes have been made and what should be done. 

“After today’s meeting, there will be an opportunity for the legal committee’s office to start preparing legislative changes, which will take two weeks. In mid-September , before initiating the changes, there will be a last working meeting, where we will discuss editorial comments and the changes will be initiated by September 21″, Mikanadze said. 

The MP, who chairs the corking group, stated that “the revision of the election code should be carried out based on the conclusions of the OSCE/ODIHR and the Venice Commission”.

The blocking of the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy NGO in the working group has caused criticism to the state authorities, including from the US Embassy, which has warned the Government that the expulsion of the NGO from the process could harm Georgia’s European integration process. 

For its part, the GD slammed the Embassy and reiterated the NGO was “politically biased”,whose “wrong parallel vote count data” in the 2020 parliamentary elections “encouraged the opposition” to take to the street. 

Georgia has several months to address judiciary, electoral and other questions to obtain the EU membership candidate status next year.