Georgia: Early Official Results Give Big Lead To Ruling Party GDDG
By Civil.Ge
(Civil.Ge) — With returns from more than half of the precincts, early official results of the proportional part of the October 8 parliamentary election show ruling GDDG party in lead with 50.5%.
UNM opposition party, which is contesting official results, has 26.6%, according to vote tally protocols from 2,014 out of 3,702 precincts.
An election bloc, led by Alliance of Patriots, has 4.77% of votes, falling slightly short of 5% threshold required for a party to win seats in the 150-member parliament under the proportional, party-list system.
Irakli Alasania’s Free Democrats has 3.9%, followed by State for People election bloc, led by opera singer Paata Burchuladze with 3.67%; Nino Burjanadze’s Democratic Movement – 3.27%; Labor Party – 3%; Republican Party – 1.44%.
Other 17 parties and election blocs, which were running in the elections, have less than 3% of votes combined.
If these early results stand, it means that only two parties – GDDG and UNM – will share 77 seats between each other proportionally to their votes as no other party is clearing 5% threshold.
The remaining 73 seats in the Parliament are contested in 73 single-mandate constituencies.
Early results of these races for majoritarian MP seats are not yet available.
Political parties and observers expect second round runoffs in many of the single-mandate constituencies.
A majoritarian MP candidate has to win over 50% of votes in order to be an outright winner; otherwise race will be pushed into the runoff between the two contenders with the best results in the first round.
Second round runoffs should be held no later than 25 days after the first round.
