Page 7 - GEORptSep20

According to the Dossier Center, the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia has hired political strategist Sergey Mikheev and Moscow company POLITSECRETS to promote the party.
The parliamentary election will be held according to an updated electoral system: 120 deputies will be elected according to party lists, and 30 according to majoritarian districts. In addition, the threshold for a party to enter parliament has been lowered. It is now 1% of the vote, rather than 3%.
2.2​ ​New poll shows Georgia’s ruling party winning autumn’s general election
An opinion poll on Georgia’s forthcoming October general election, conducted by British company Survation at the request of Georgian Rustavi 2 TV, concluded that the ruling Georgian Dream party will receive 52% of votes.
The poll, which surveyed 1,200 people around the country between July 15 and July 24, put Georgian Dream’s main rival, the United National Movement (UNM), at 19%. UNM’s most likely ally, European Georgia, would get 8% if the poll results were borne out. The other particularly relevant parties are Alliance of Patriots (5%), Lelo (5%) and New Georgia (4%). The other parties altogether received the combined support of 7%.
Per the constitutional amendments passed earlier this month, an election bloc or party which receives less than 40.54% of votes in the proportional elections will not be able to form a government.
Another poll, this one conducted by Edison Research, showed the ruling party polling at 39%.
Previously, the International Republican Institute (IRI) put Georgian Dream at 33% versus 16% for UNM in its poll.
The 2020 parliamentary elections will be held under a new system: 120 seats in parliament will be distributed based on the votes received in proportional votig elections while the remaining 30 per the votes received in majoritarian voting (instead of the 76/73 electoral system used previously).
The mandates in the proportional elections will be distributed among parties and election blocs which receive at least 1% of the vote.
Blocs will be allowed in the election, but with a different election threshold. The percentage of votes received by an election bloc must at least amount to 1pp times the number of parties in the bloc to bring about seats in parliament.
2.3​ ​EU agrees MoUs for MFA programmes with eight partner countries
The European Commission said on August 11 it agreed Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on macro-financial assistance (MFA) programmes
7​ GEORGIA Country Report ​September 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com