Tbilisi. Georgian Civil Society organizations held a press conference and addressed representatives of diplomatic mission.

''We are sending this message on behalf of 30 civil society organizations to alert you on some very damaging actions by the ruling political party in Georgia, which does adversely affect the quality of democracy in the country and is a dangerous attempt consolidate political power.

Namely, we are referring to the latest developments in the process of the constitutional reform in Georgia.

As you are aware, the constitutional reform was initiated in the wake of the Parliamentary elections last Autumn, when the ruling Georgian Dream party, after receiving (constitutional) super majority in the Parliament, made a pledge to launch a comprehensive constitutional reform process, which should have resulted in a refined document with a broad political consensus. We along with other representatives of the civil society organizations, decided to take a constructive and participatory approach and agreed to be included in the State Constitutional Commission set up to discuss the constitutional amendments.

The Georgian Dream made the promise to change the electoral system into a fairer one by 2020. With that anticipation we, Georgian civil society organizations, entered the Constitutional Commission. Throughout the work of the Commission, we voiced all our recommendations and concerns openly within the Constitutional Commission, as well as via national media and public meetings, and to the Venice Commission, and took all the effort to facilitate constructive, inclusive and consensus-based constitution-making process.

Having received the response from the Venice Commission, the ruling party decided to disregard it, but also to neglect the whole process of the work of the Constitutional Commission, to ignore the voice of the civil society and all political parties and, contrary to all expectations and the initial version of the draft, to postpone the changes in the electoral system until 2024 (the general elections following the next one). In other words, having first acknowledged that the existing electoral system needs to be reformed to make it more just and fair, Georgian Dream decided to keep it, despite the promises given out to the public, civil society and all other political parties, irrespective of the several month-long work of the Constitutional Commission, initiated by themselves, and in contradiction to the recommendations of the Venice Commission – and all this, in order to, merely, retain the power”, is noted in the statement.

Source: www.transparency.ge