Georgian Parliamentary Sessions begin today

The Georgian legislative body starts its autumn activities on 6 September, the date set according to the Constitution as the first Tuesday of September. There is serious intrigue brewing in the coming session and important amendments to be made to the Constitution. It has become a tradition in recent times that the ruling party enjoys a constitutional majority in the Parliament and the opposition plays only a minor role. Many citizens believe that the current parliamentary "opposition" is the result of a secret deal between the ruling power and this opposition, and is more ornamental than substantial so that the ruling majority can adopt anything it pleases.

This session could have been very trivial if it weren't for the fact that it will have to adopt significant amendments to the Constitution concerning the number of MPs, increasing them from 150 to 190. These amendments were initiated by the ruling power and mainly serve its interests though they are subtly disguised as an "official deal" with the opposition. Concretely the ruling power managed to split the so-called "Opposition 8" to make two of its members--the Christian Democrats and the New Rights Party agree to accept the ruling party amendment into the Constitution as well as the Election Code. The remaining six groups in the opposition do not agree to those amendments and demand further negotiations. However the ruling party received consent from the two opposition entities and subsequently from Western allies and now refuses to conduct any further negotiations on these issues. Nothing remains for "Opposition 6" except to express its indignation through different types of protest actions.

Most controversial is the issue of increasing the number of MPs. The number of MPs was fixed in November 2003 through a referendum. According to the Constitution any decision adopted by referendum should be revised by another referendum. But the country’s administration is not going to do that. In fact the authorities use lame excuses to justify illegal procedures, thus the opposition has serious arguments to organize protest actions. Georgians are generally unhappy about these measures and believe that it will be increasing the number of persons likely to argue rather than to pass constructive legislation. What is the most arrogant aspect of this procedure is that the ruling authorities declared that the results of the 2003 referendum are illegal since the entire territory of Georgia (including Abkhazia and South Ossetia) could not take part in that referendum since they were (already) not under the control of the Georgian Government. They believe that with the new amendments, 190 MPs will comfortably secure a majority for the ruling party and will finally satisfy the opposition parties as well, since some will also be elected, although an insignificant number.