Parliamentary Elections - 26 October 2024
Georgia’s constitution provides for an executive branch that reports to the prime minister, a unicameral parliament, and a separate judiciary. The government is accountable to parliament. The president is the head of state and commander in chief. The president is elected by members of the electoral college, comprised of all members of parliament, members of the high councils of the autonomous republics, and city council representatives.
The country held two rounds of parliamentary elections in October and November 2020. In its final report, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe stated the first round of parliamentary elections was competitive and, overall, fundamental freedoms were respected, but “pervasive allegations of pressure on voters and blurring of the line between the ruling party and the state reduced public confidence in some aspects of the process.”
The 150 MPs are elected for four-year terms. Under the new system, 120 MPs are elected proportionally through closed party lists, and the remaining 30 MPs are elected in single-member constituencies. Parties must receive at least one per cent of valid votes cast to qualify for proportional seat allocation. The party must receive at least 40 per cent of the vote in order to be assigned a majority of seats in parliament. In majoritarian contests, candidates can be nominated by the parties or run independently and must receive over 50 per cent of votes cast to be elected. If no candidate receives the required number of votes, a runoff is held on the third Saturday after the election day between the two candidates who received the highest number of votes. For the 2024 parliamentary elections the system will be changed to a fully proportional one.
The 2024 election is to be held with a fully proportional system, but with a 5% threshold. If the elections of October 31, 2020, were held with the system planned for 2024 elections, only “Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia” and “United National Movement – United Opposition” would have entered the Parliament. The first would have obtained 95 mandates, more than they have today.[1] The number of “lost votes” (cast for the parties under the threshold) would have reached 20%, which would mean that every fifth voter would have been left without a representative. Georgia’s past electoral experience shows, that the higher threshold does not substantially change the voter behavior – people keep voting for smaller parties, even if they know they are unlikely to cross the threshold. Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: serious problems with the independence of the judiciary along with arbitrary or selective detentions, investigations, and prosecutions widely considered to be politically motivated; unlawful interference with privacy; violence and threats of violence against journalists; limited respect for freedom of peaceful assembly and association; and crimes involving violence or threats targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex persons and activists. The government took steps to investigate some officials for human rights abuses, but impunity remained a problem.
Russian-occupied regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia remained outside central government control, and de facto authorities were supported by Russian forces. The cessation of hostilities from 2008 remained in effect, but Russian guards restricted the movement of local populations. Significant human rights issues in the regions included credible reports of unlawful detentions; restrictions on movement, especially of ethnic Georgians; restrictions on voting or otherwise participating in the political process; and restrictions on the ability of ethnic Georgians to own property or register businesses.
The European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment on the merits on 21 January 2021 in the inter-State application (II) No. 38263/08 Georgia v. Russia concerning the armed conflict between Georgia and the Russian Federation in 2008 and its consequences. The Deputies recalled in their decision of 4 May 2022 that the judgment established the responsibility of the Russian Federation for grave human rights violations during the period of occupation of the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia following the August 2008 war as the State exercising effective control over those regions including the killing, torture, ill-treatment and arbitrary detention of Georgian civilians and military personnel, the looting and burning of Georgian homes, the inhuman treatment of Georgians targeted as an ethnic group, and the deprivation of the right of IDPs and refugees to return to their homes.
On 01 October 2021, the government announced that former president Mikheil Saakashvili had returned to the country and been detained on various charges and convictions in absentia. The convictions in absentia included abuse of power for ordering the physical assault on a former member of parliament. On November 11, the Public Defender’s Office asked the SIS to initiate an investigation into alleged violations of former president Saakashvili’s rights by the Ministry of Justice and Special Penitentiary Service (SPS) by forcibly transferring him from Prison N12 in Rustavi to Prison Hospital N18 in Gldani, after his prolonged hunger strike.
Independent media were active and expressed a wide variety of views. NGOs continued to express concern regarding the close relationship between Georgian Public Broadcaster and Georgian National Communications Commission (GNCC) and the ruling party, GNCC bias against opposition-leaning outlets, the public broadcaster’s editorial bias in favor of the ruling party, decreased media pluralism, criminal prosecutions against owners and directors of opposition-leaning outlets that appeared politically motivated, violence against journalists, impunity for attacks against journalists, the ruling party’s boycott of media critical of the government, and alleged wiretaps specifically targeting journalists.
Transparency International-Georgia (TI-Georgia) on 22 December 2022 released a report on the parliamentary oversight, covering the period from December 12, 2020, to June 17, 2022. According to the report, the parliamentary oversight was irreparably damaged by the ongoing political turmoil, particularly the boycott of the parliament after the 2020 parliamentary elections by a large part of the opposition parties. “As a result, the Parliament actually continued its work without opposition,” the report read.
This “had a severe impact on Parliament’s oversight functions, the use of control mechanisms was reduced, and when used – often executed in an extremely proforma manner.” Also, “the attitude of accountable officials towards legislative oversight was still a problem, especially if the control was initiated by the opposition.”
Across Europe, the war in Ukraine upended politics and global security, with many countries' national concerns changing almost overnight. Few places have felt this disruption more keenly than Georgia, which sits on Russia's southern Caucasus border. Decisions made by the ruling Georgian Dream party have thrown the party's political leanings into sharper relief, exposing the country's deep fault lines.
In the days and weeks after the war began, the ruling party refused to join international sanctions against Russia, causing dismay among many in Georgia who saw this as evidence that party leader, tycoon, and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili was beholden to Russia.
For those who aspire to a Georgia looking toward the European Union rather than Russia, it has been dismaying. Ivanishvili made his fortune in Moscow in the 1990s and now has no formal role in Georgian political life. However, he is widely considered by analysts to be controlling Georgian Dream from the shadows.
While the government would sometimes formally appease public opinion and say they are pro-EU, in substance and nature the government is a collaborationist regime with Russia that uses Georgians' fear of war and Russia as leverage. Many of those in opposition to the Georgian Dream government take umbrage over what they say is the government's disregard of grievances Georgia sustained as a result of the 2008 Russian invasion.
As a result of the alleged violations, opposition parties boycotted the runoff elections on 21 November 2020 and refused to take their seats in parliament. In December 2020 the new parliament was sworn in, but only the ruling Georgian Dream members of parliament took their seats (Georgian Dream won 90 of 150 seats). The OSCE did not observe the November 2020 runoff elections, and most domestic observer groups significantly scaled back their observation efforts or did not observe because of the boycott. Nevertheless, domestic election monitoring organizations raised concerns regarding electoral violations on election day.
Georgian Dream controls around half the seats in Georgia's 150-member parliament, and collaborates with the People's Power party comprising recent defectors from Georgian Dream. Georgian Dream's founding billionaire, Bidzina Ivanishvili, made much of his fortune in Russia.
Levan Ioseliani, a member of the Citizens opposition party and the Vice Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, on 05 January 2023 said ensuring release of the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili was a goal of the opposition United National Movement party, while other domestic opposition parties were “not motivated by such goals”.
On 6 February 2023, the Central Election Commission (CEC) held a meeting at which an important decision was made regarding the use of electronics and advanced digitalization in the electoral process. According to the decision, 90% of Georgian voters will vote electronically in the 2024 parliamentary elections. The Commission has determined the polling stations where the procedure will be conducted electronically. In the polling stations where the electronic format will not be used, the Precinct Election Commission (PEC) will convert the ballot papers into a digital format.
In an unprecedented show of unity among the fragmented opposition in October 2020, Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) and smaller opposition groups had joined forces to challenge the ruling Georgian Dream party chaired by Ivanishvili. The billionaire’s party has been in power since 2012 and his lavish mansion is nestled on a forested mountain that overlooks the capital Tbilisi. Georgian Dream had seen its popularity plummet over its handling of the economy and a perceived backsliding on its commitment to democracy. “An oligarch who owns some 40% of Georgia’s national wealth has appropriated the country and is ruling it as his fiefdom,” Saakashvili told AFP.
The 2020 election campaign was extremely harsh and divisive. It revealed a deep polarization in the society and media over the irreconcilable political competition between GD and its major political opponent, the UNM. Both parties resorted to negative and highly polarizing campaigning to attract votes and focused their campaigns on personalities rather than on programs. The ruling party was convinced that the fragmented and weakened opposition would not pose a substantial challenge.
The ruling Georgian Dream party won 90 seats, with Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) only posting 36 seats. Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia won re-election for a third term in office, making it the first party in Georgian history to do so. The election also saw a record eight opposition parties elected to parliament.
Protests errupted in Tbilisi, with some 45,000 people attending a protest 08 November 2020 that was broken up with water cannon. The eight opposition parties stated that they would not attend parliament, and on 03 November 2020, all opposition parties signed a joint statement renouncing their seats in the parliament until the parliamentary elections were repeated.
The elections revealed that even though many Georgians are growing tired of GD’s rule, the opposition is incapable of successfully capitalizing on the ruling party’s mistakes in order to regain power. The largest opposition party, UNM, used largely the same tactics that resulted in a crushing defeat in the last parliamentary elections. This strategy has generally proved unsuccessful, even though many Georgians are dissatisfied with the ruling party and its seeming inability to tackle the country’s mounting economic and policy problems.
Empirical studies have demonstrated that anti-government economic voting is likely to take place where the clarity of responsibility (the degree to which voters can attribute policy responsibility to the government) is high. When there are fewer opposition parties, the relationship between economic performance and governing parties’ electoral fortune is stronger. Opposition fragmentation appears to be as strong a factor as the clarity of responsibility.
Like some previous episodes of major unrest to oppose perceived corruption and government inaction toward EU membership for the Caucasus nation of nearly 5 million in recent years, the March 2023 calls to demonstrate were seemingly organized by activists outside of official parties. The Russian-style "foreign agent" bill sparked massive protests over fears it would have severely restricted dissent and the activity of civil society groups and push the country toward authoritarianism. Georgian Dream lawmaker Irakli Kadagishvili on March 12 suggested that the government's opponents were part of a "second front" in the war in nearby Ukraine.Kadagishvili said that since Russia's invasion began in February 2022 "there has been a direct, indirect, open, or hidden attempt to use Georgia as a second front."
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