BBC - The first session of the country's parliament, elected during the elections on October 26, opened in Tbilisi. The ruling Georgian Dream party decided to hold a meeting on November 25, although none of the opposition forces that received mandates recognized the voting results announced by the Central Election Commission. Only deputies from the Georgian Dream are participating in the meeting; the deputies began work with the procedure for recognizing the powers of parliament. The President Georgian Salome Zurabishvili previously wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter) that the first meeting, according to the country’s constitution, was supposed to she convened, but did not do so, so the current meeting is unconstitutional. Demonstrations against the new parliament began in Tbilisi on Sunday evening. According to a BBC correspondent at the scene, the demonstrators gathered at Republic Square, from where they marched to the parliament building, and then pitched tents there and spent the night in them.
Police officers are stationed at the entrances to parliament. On the eve of the first meeting, the Ministry of Internal Affairs warned the demonstrators that blocking a strategic object or an object of special importance could result in criminal punishment. Just three days before the parliamentary elections, the country's government included the Georgian parliament building in the list of such objects.
In order for the parliament to begin work at the first meeting, according to the Constitution, the presence of a simple majority of the full composition of parliament is sufficient. According to the results of the parliamentary elections announced by the Central Election Commission, the ruling party received 89 out of 150 mandates. “Georgian Dream” is in the lead, the opposition does not recognize the results. How the elections took place in Georgia. In addition to the ruling party, representatives of four opposition forces received parliamentary mandates - three opposition alliances and the party of former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia. However, all opposition forces that crossed the 5% electoral threshold stated that they were not going to enter parliament and recognize its legitimacy.
The President of Georgia, who, like the opposition, does not recognize the election results, as well as representatives of diplomatic missions accredited in Georgia are not present at the meeting. According to the Chairman of the Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, ambassadors of foreign countries were not invited to the first meeting, since this is “a domestic issue ” and MPs would also like to “minimize the undue influence of foreigners.”
The opposition demands new parliamentary elections and hopes for an international investigation into violations in the October 26 elections. She also expresses distrust in the investigative authorities and the judicial system of Georgia. Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili also called the October 26 elections a total falsification. The ruling party claims that the elections were held at a high level - free, fair and democratic.
