Co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Georgia of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) , Titus Corlățean (Romania, SOC) and Claude Kern (France, ALDE), express their “deep regret at the failure of the Georgian Parliament to pass the Constitutional amendments” aimed to move to the fully proportional election system by 2020.

“We deplore the lack of support for these amendments. The introduction of a proportional system has been called for by all stakeholders for more than a decade, and its introduction was long overdue,” they said in a statement of November 14.

“In the light of the clear consensus by all stakeholders on the need to introduce this system before the 2020 parliamentary elections, the failure of the amendments to pass is incomprehensible. This is a step backwards,” the co-rapporteurs added.
Corlățean and Kern also called on all political forces, and particularly the ruling majority, “to explore ways in which these amendments could still be passed before the coming elections.”

The constitutional changes prepared by the parliamentary majority regarding transformation onto the proportional system of elections were turned down in the parliament on November 14. Some majority MPs left their parliamentary seats and posts. The oppositional parties and Georgian public representatives turned to the street in protest.