Georgia starts preparing for next year's parliamentary elections

The South Caucasus country of Georgia on Thursday started its voters list preparation for next year's parliamentary elections.

A special commission in charge of voters list preparation met for its inaugural session during the day when it elected the commission chief and secretary.

The commission is composed of representatives from both the ruling and opposition parties of the country. Procedures and technical issues were also touched upon during Thursday's first session of the commission.

Representatives of non-governmental organizations are also included in the commission.

The commission, to be chaired by New Rights Party member Mamuka Katsitadze, has until July 1 of next year to prepare the complete voters list which is then to be presented for approval to the Georgian Central Election Commission.

The unicameral parliament of Georgia has 150 seats and the next parliamentary elections are slated for October of 2012. The previous elections were held in May of 2008.

Half of the Georgian lawmakers will be elected through a proportional representation system while the remaining half will be elected by majority votes from single-member constituencies. All the elected lawmakers will serve for four years.

The ruling United National Movement party now occupies 119 seats of the parliament while three opposition parties, the Labor Party, Christian Democrats party and Republican Party of Georgia, combine to occupy 14 seats, with the remaining 17 seats scattered with other smaller opposition parties.

Editor: yan

English.news.cn   2011-11-18 01:11:44 FeedbackPrintRSS
TBILISI, Nov. 17 (Xinhua)