Ruling party and over dozen of opposition parties in talks over election system reform will spend one more meeting on discussing “technical” aspects of talks next week and are expected to move to substantive discussion of election-related issues at a meeting on December 1.

Rule of decision-making and other procedural issues topped the agenda of second meeting between the negotiators on November 17.

No formal protocol of the meeting was signed after the talks, but the participants said they have brought their positions “closer” on the issue of decision-making. It is expected, that during the next meeting on November 24, the negotiators will agree that those decisions, which will be reached within the negotiating group through consensus, will be automatically passed by the Parliament without further discussions or amendments in the legislative body. But contentions issues on which the parties fail to reach consensus will be further discussed in the Parliament, where the ruling National Movement Party has an absolute majority.

The participants agreed on list of those local non-governmental organizations, which will be present at talks as observers. These are: International Society for Fair Election and Democracy; Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association; New Generation-New Initiative and Transparency International-Georgia.

In addition the participants also agreed to nominate four other non-governmental organizations, which will be present at talks as observers; it was agreed that a group of eight opposition parties, which have put forth their joint proposals on election system reform, as well as the ruling party will nominate one NGO each and other participating parties will jointly name two NGOs at the next meeting scheduled for November 24 in the Central Election Commission.