The ruling Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia party will lose the parliamentary elections even if the mixed electoral system is preserved, because the opposition intends to present a single candidate in local districts, leader of the European Georgia opposition party Giga Bokeria said.
At the same time, he stressed that the opposition will be able to speak with one voice even if early parliamentary elections are held.
"We will have one opposition candidate in each single-mandate district and there will be just one round. But this is an abnormal scenario. The normal scenario is elections under a proportional system and competition between political forces," Sputnik-Georgia cited Bokeria as saying.
The opposition and civic activists have resumed protests at Georgian parliament in Tbilisi earlier today, demanding an early transition to a proportional electoral system in time for the parliamentary elections scheduled for later this year.
The opposition believes that the current electoral system, with 73 MPs elected in single-mandate constituencies and 77 based on proportional system, is more beneficial to the ruling party.
Political scientist Gela Vasadze, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that Bokeria's scenario is the only possible option. "This is quite natural. This is something that has been talked about for a long time, and the main opposition forces have no other choice," the expert explained.
"To avoid insignificant candidates, the opposition should clearly distribute its regional resources. Indeed, different parties have different resources in different regions. So I think this is the only and completely logical decision," Gela Vasadze said.
The head of the Center for Global Studies, Nana Devdariani, agreed that the opposition will be able to implement Bokeria's scenario. "Finding a compromise is not that hard - there aren’t that many real candidates, especially since the opposition parties have de facto united. But the problem is that 32 parties gathered ten times fewer people than 'Alliance of Patriots' to protests, so the big question is whether a single candidate can win," she said.
The political scientist noted that the opposition changed its tactics. "Until now, they said they will fight to the end in order to achieve fully proportional elections, and now they have decided to prepare for elections in single-mandate districts. But they know that the ruling party candidates almost always win the majority voting," Nana Devdariani stressed.
