Second round of Elections 2016: All you need to know
Tweet 
Share
On Saturday, October 8, Georgian citizens voted to elect the 150-seat Parliament of Georgia, 77 members through party lists and 73 in the majoritarian districts.
Parties must gain at least five percent of all votes to enter Parliament. According to current preliminary results, three parties managed to overcome this threshold.
Majoritarian candidates must gain at least 50 percent of all votes in their respective voting district in order to be able to enter Parliament. If no candidate gains at least a half of all votes, a second round of voting is held, where the two candidates with the highest number of previous votes compete.
There are 73 election districts in Georgia. After Saturday's vote Georgian Dream (GD) candidates won outright in 23 districts while a winner was not identified in the remaining 50 districts. This meant a second round of vote will be needed in 50 districts nationwide.
What if two candidates have the same number of votes in second round?
If two candidates gain the same number of votes in the runoff elections, the winner is the candidate who gained the most votes in the initial election on Saturday, October 8.
What if a candidate refuses to participate in the second round?
Georgia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) spokesperson Ana Mikeladze said if a candidate refused to participate in the second round, their name would still remain on election ballots, meaning people could still vote for them.
If this candidate wins the second round, a by-election will be held to fill the vacant majoritarian seat in Parliament.
However, local non-governmental organisations disliked this rule and said it was a waste of resources and time. They believed it would be better if the unwilling candidate was not named on the ballot paper and instead, name the person with the next highest number of votes to replace them in the second round.
The NGOs believed the section of Georgia’s Election Code that described the rules surrounding second round voting can be interpreted the way they suggested.
When will the runoff take place?
Legislation states November 2 is the latest date when the second round of voting can take place.
Opposition party United National Movement (UNM) gained the second highest number of votes in Saturday’s Parliamentary Elections but might refuse to participate in a second round of voting.
Georgia’s Central Election Commission has finished counting majoritarian votes from all 73 districts countrywide. In 20 districts a candidate from Georgian Dream won, while a second round will be held in the remaining 50 districts.
Opposition party United National Movement has decided not to boycott the second round of the October 8 Parliamentary Elections. The party will participate in the runoff and will also take up their seats in Parliament.
The Supreme Council of Adjara -the legislative body in Georgia's western Autonomous Republic of Adjara, will have a multi-party Parliament after four parties overcome the five percent threshold in Saturday’s elections.
A repeat vote of the Parliamentary Elections will take place in several districts in Georgia where votes were nullified due to incidences on Election Day.
Today Prime Minister of Georgia met the Ambassadors of the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) to Georgia to discuss the October 8 Parliamentary Elections.
A second round of October 8 Parliamentary Elections of Georgia will likely take place on October 30 and a repeat vote at four polling stations will likely be held on October 22.
“We need constitutional majority to fulfill all election promises”
Georgia’s Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili says the ruling party wants the constitutional majority in Parliament to fulfill all the promises given to population in the pre-election period and that a constitutional majority is not a bad thing, as opposition parties speculate.
Today Georgia’s Minister of Internal Affairs said the agency was "fully mobilised not to let any complications” occur during this weekend’s second round of voting.
The British and the Netherlands Embassies stated today they will observe the second round of Georgia’s Parliamentary Elections on Sunday.
All polling stations are open to voters
Georgia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) has hosted its first information briefing announcing the opening of polling booths for today’s election runoff. Earlier today CEC spokesperson Ani Mikeladze said all polling stations for the second round of elections opened at 8am.