On 30 May 2015, at the conference organized by the President’s administration, participants signed the document on the issue of electoral reform. The agreement was made between 8 NGOs and 14 political parties, which includes parliamentary and non-parliamentary opposition, whose representatives signed the appeal.

To the Members of the Georgian Parliament

Dear Members of the Parliament,

Representatives of the civil society and political parties address you with this joint appeal:

To secure a democratic, competitive and equal election environment, it is critical for Georgia to amend its current electoral system. This process requires legislative, including constitutional, changes. The existing electoral system cannot ensure for votes to be proportionally reflected in the mandates, the number of missing votes is large and the “one man one vote” principle is not protected.

A number of recommendations made by international organizations are aimed at addressing these exact shortcomings.

Consequently, it is essential that Members of Parliament immediately initiate the enactment of constitutional amendments. Hereby, we urge that paragraph 1 of Article 49 of the Georgian Constitution is changed to as follows:

“Before the conditions provided for in Article 4 of the Constitution are established, Parliament shall consist of 75 MPs elected through the universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot for a term of 4 years and 75 MPs elected through the regional proportional system.”

We would like to emphasize once again that the draft constitutional amendments must be initiated immediately so as to have the Constitutional norm amended in a reasonable time prior to the next parliamentary elections in 2016.

We hope that the consensus expressed in the present appeal, which was jointly agreed on by different social and political groups sharing different viewpoints, will find your support and be reflected in the legislative changes that are so vital for the democratic development of the country.