A special group will be set up involving the lawmakers from both the parliamentary majority and minority, which will carry out “long and scrupulous” work to improve the election legislation, Georgian Parliamentary Chairman Davit Bakradze said.

Speaking at a press conference on December 15 he called on the non-parliamentary opposition, “which is interested in participating in future elections”, as well as on local and international organizations to take part in the group’s work.

“We expect a response from the non-parliamentary opposition groups,” he said.

A newly set up alliance of the two opposition parties – New Rights and Republicans – said it had prepared its proposals over the election code and would present them tentatively this week.

“The nearest elections planned in Georgia are the local self-government elections scheduled for autumn 2010. So, this group has enough time to think over and analyze all changes in a calm and working atmosphere,” Bakradze said. “I hope that the group will complete working in the course of 2009; then the document will undergo international expertise and afterwards it will be adopted by the Parliament so that enough time is left for its implementation.”

In his earlier remarks made last week, Bakradze said that the work on the electoral reform was expected to be over by spring, 2009. The opposition is pushing for the early elections to be held in spring. Bakradze, however, also said last week that the planned reform of the election code did no way mean that early elections would be held. President Saakashvili also spoke against the early polls.

MP Pavle Kublashvili of the ruling party, who chairs the parliamentary committee for legal affairs, told Civil.Ge last week that the planned group would develop in fact a new election code.

Bakradze said on December 15, that it was up to the group itself to decide whether to develop a new code or to make considerable changes to the current one. 

The Parliamentary Chairman did not speak about specific topics which the group will address. He said that the amendments would be based on recommendations of international organizations.

“According to the assessments of international organizations, the latest elections in Georgia were an important step ahead, but naturally there is a resource to improve the election legislation more significantly,” he said.

The main election international observation body, working under the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) umbrella, said in its final conclusions about the May 21 parliamentary elections that while the election code was “generally conducive to conducting democratic elections, it contains new provisions which created an unequal playing field in favour of the ruling party.”

Among the key issues, that the opposition is expected to push, is the rule of election of majoritarian MPs in 75 single-mandate constituencies.

According to the current rule – under which the sitting Parliament was elected - one majoritarian MP is elected in each of the 75 single-mandate constituencies in the 150-member legislative body. The remaining 75 seats are distributed among lawmakers elected through a party-list, proportional system.

Opposition was against of that rule saying that the ruling party was better positioned to gain more majoritarian seats under this system, as the law stipulates that a candidate winning more than others and more than 30% of the vote would be declared the outright winner in the first round without the need for a runoff. Under this system and in the light of the opposition’s fragmentation the ruling party managed to win 71 majoritarian seats out of 75 (the ruling party had no majoritarian candidate in one of the provincial single-mandate constituencies).

The main international election observation mission said in its final conclusions that the system was not fair, because the election code “does not require single-mandate constituencies to be of equal or comparable size.”

The number of voters in various single-mandate constituencies range from around 6,000 to over 140,000.

“Such large variations undermine one of the main principles of electoral rights, namely the equality of the vote. In amending the Constitution and the UEC [unified election code], Parliament did not try to address this imbalance,” the mission’s report reads.

The opposition is also expected to push for the change of the rule on composition of the election administrations at all levels. The ruling party and its affiliated persons have majority seats in the current administrations, including in the Central Election Commission.

“Election commissioners, whether party-appointed or not, must act impartially, in a collegial manner and in accordance with the law,” the international observers’ report said. “The UEC could safeguard against the dominance of any one political party in managerial positions of election commissions. In order to enhance broad confidence, the CEC Chairperson could be elected from among the CEC members based on inclusive consultations among the political forces.”