Boycott to the Parliament of Georgia announced another faction

The boycott of the plenary meetings of the Parliament of Georgia was announced by another faction, which was already acting as a constructive opposition, the Alliance of Patriots Social Democrats. Members of the faction filed a special statement from the Bureau of Parliament, in which they reported that for political reasons they would not participate in the meetings of the spring session of the legislature. The leading meeting of the Bureau on February 5, First Deputy Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia Georgy Volsky warned patriots that in case of failure to attend the session they will suspend payment of salaries, but such a measure did not affect the decision of the leaders of the alliance. The spring session of Parliament began against the background of a protest promised by the opposition, during which activists of the opposition and the civil sector built corridors of shame at the entrance to the legislature and tried to block the building, but it turned out that the deputies of the majority appeared to work earlier than the protesters, which the opposition attributed to their fear of the anger of the people. Commenting on what is happening, Georgy Volsky noted that the noisy action that takes place outside the walls of the Parliament will not be able to interfere with the work of legislators, as the agenda contains extremely important issues for the country. We continue to work, and this work will be extraordinary, because the spring session falls during the pre-election period, Volsky said. As it is known, earlier boycott to meetings of parliament declared the main opposition National Movement and European Georgia, which organized outside the walls of the legislature another protest. The reason and reason for the protests was the failure in Parliament of the bill of amendments to the Constitution, which provided for the transition to a proportional system since 2020. According to the current Constitution, parliamentary elections under a purely proportional system should take place in 2024. After unsuccessful protests, the opposition and the ruling party, on the urgent recommendation of the Ambassadors of the EU and the United States, sat down at the negotiating table, but could not reach an agreement. The opposition insists on a proportional system either on an adapted German system, and the ruling party proposes as a compromise to reduce the number of majoritaries from 73 to 50 and increase the number of deputies elected under the proportional system from 77 to 100. Opponents are not satisfied with such a model, and they decided to continue protests.