The threshold to increase for the elected Mayors

MPs from the ruling party want to raise the 30 percent threshold for upcoming Local Government Elections.  

The ruling party parliamentary faction held a meeting yesterday where this issue and completion of the Public Broadcaster (GPB) board were discussed. These issues are going to be discussed at the parliamentary sessions during this week.  

The leader of the Georgian Dream Parliamentary faction, Gia Volsky told journaliststhe current law meant that the mayoral candidate had to overcome a 30 percent threshold to win. He said the ruling party would like to raise this threshold.

"Forty percent means that the candidate will be elected with far more legitimacy than before. If the threshold is 40 percent instead of 30, this would be a correct decision since it is more optimal, Volsky said.  

The iniciative was cricized by the opposition. Representative of the Christian Democrats Movement, Levan Vepkhvadze stated that the GD is trying to fit the law to its interests what was traditionally made by the United National Movement in the past.

"Why should the threshold 40 percent in the capital city for the mayoral candidates and 33 percent in the regions for the municipal governors? Why should the directly elected mayors have more legitimation than the municipal governors?" Vepkhvadze asked.

As for the GPB board, Volsky said the MPs had not changed their opinion of the three candidates who could not gather enough votes during the previous parliamentary sessions. Candidate Ninia Kakabadze was named by the UNM; Lela Gaprindashvili was named by the Public Defender and Geno Geladze was named by the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara.  

In addition, the MPs were not willing to change their positions and are not going tp support the re-named three candidates.  

"We have elected three candidates for the board and we keep discussing the issue. I do not exclude that another competition will be announced in order to raise the chances of the candidates named by society, Volsky admitted, saying the three candidates were not supported because of professional shortcomings.  

The fact that UNM, Public Defender and Supreme Council of Adjara re-named their candidates, was criticized by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly co-rapporteur Boris Silevich during his Tbilisi visit on January 16.  He said he did not understand the reason why those parties named the same candidates again when they were not supported by the parliament the first time. He suggested there would be a high possibility these candidates would not be supported for the second time as well.