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Police In Georgia Use Water Cannon To Scatter Defiant Protesters Outside Parliament

By RFE/RL's Georgian Service November 26, 2019

TBILISI -- After issuing a 30-minute ultimatum, Georgian police early on November 26 deployed water canon to disperse protesters near parliament and detained several activists, hours after thousands assembled in the capital demanding electoral reforms.

Giorgi Vashadze, one of the opposition leaders, told reporters that several people, including one opposition politician, were detained by police.​

Protesters gathered the previous day after the ruling Georgian Dream party refused to change the electoral system from a mixed to a proportional one beginning next year.

Supporters of about 20 opposition groups marched from Tbilisi's Republic Square to parliament, blocking traffic in Rustaveli Avenue, the city's main thoroughfare.

The protesters called on the government to step down and for early elections to be held, and vowed to prevent lawmakers from entering parliament where a plenary session was scheduled for November 26.

Earlier on November 25, the ruling party's secretary-general, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, said after a party meeting that "the issue is closed and there will be no changes in the electoral system."

The status quo, according to the opposition, benefits the Georgian Dream party, which has been in power since 2012.

The matter has been a hot topic for weeks after a constitutional amendment on the transition to a proportional electoral system was rejected by parliament on November 14.

The reform was one of the demands of thousands of demonstrators who rallied for weeks in Tbilisi in June and July and then again in recent weeks.

One of the protests was violently dispersed by police on November 18 with 37 protesters arrested in the demonstration.

The legislature currently has proportional representation for about half of the body's seats, a system which opposition parties say unfairly favors the Georgian Dream party.

After 20,000 people rallied in Tbilisi on November 17, the United States and the European Union called on the Georgian government, political parties, and civil society to engage in a "calm and respectful dialogue."

An EU delegation to Georgia and the U.S. Embassy said in a joint statement on November 17 that they "recognize the deep disappointment of a wide segment of Georgian society at the failure of parliament to pass the constitutional amendments."

The halting of the transition to proportional elections "has increased mistrust and heightened tensions between the ruling party and other political parties and civil society," the statement said.

The vote has also prompted criticism from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

With reporting by AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/georgia-s-ruling- party-rules-electoral-system-change-despite-violent- opposition-protests/30290824.html/a>