Public Defender Levan Ioseliani criticized a draft law initiated in the Georgian Parliament, which aims at abolishing gender quotas by amending the Election Code of Georgia.

“These changes are particularly noteworthy because the Parliament of Georgia supported the extension of gender quotas in 2022 until 2032, contrary to the above, and thus clearly emphasized the importance of women’s political participation and the implementation of relevant necessary measures to increase women’s involvement.

The gender quota mechanism is not a privilege granted to women but a crucial tool for eliminating discriminatory attitudes towards women, fighting stereotypes, and fulfilling international obligations.

Women face invisible barriers every day, which can be eliminated, and substantial equality can be achieved in the country by improving the proportion of the mandatory gender quota and implementing other supportive measures. The planned legislative changes ignore the results of the long-standing struggle of women and worsen the existing mechanisms for achieving equality.

For the democratic development of the country, women’s voices must be clearly heard in the country’s legislative body and other policy-making agencies so that women’s needs and measures promoting gender equality are kept on the agenda,” he said.

The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party aims to abolish the quota for women in parliament by backing the initiative that the parliamentary opposition Girchi party initiated. The Girchi party said that if the GD supported abolishing women’s quota, it would back the ruling team’s “normal” candidate for the post of Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC), including the current chair, Giorgi Kalandarishvili.