The FINANCIAL — According to online magazine Civil Georgia, Giga Bokeria, an influential lawmaker from the ruling party, ruled out any compromise with the opposition in the light of ongoing hunger strike.
In the interview with the Georgian weekly Kviris Palitra, published on March 24, he said that a decision on electing 75 majoritarian MPs in single-mandate constituencies “will not be revised.”
The opposition has put forth a single demand to elect 75 majoritarian MPs in multi-mandate constituencies instead of single-mandate constituencies as a precondition for ending the hunger strike.
Doctors and opposition activists said health condition of hunger strikers had worsened over the weekend. There are currently 42 hunger strikers outside the parliament, according to figures posted on the opposition Conservative Party’s website. March 24 marks the sixteenth day in a hunger strike for five politicians from the eight-party coalition – three of whom are MPs. Others are on their fifteenth and fourteenth day of hunger strike. Six lawmakers from the New Rights Party camped just outside Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze’s office inside Parliament are on their fifteenth day (MP Irakli Iashvili joined his colleagues on March 13).
MP Gigi Tsereteli of the ruling party suggested on March 24 that the authorities could resort to compulsory medical treatment of hunger strikers if they continued refusing medical care.
MP Bokeria speaking with the weekly Kviris Palitra also said no agreement had ever been reached with the opposition about composition of the election administrations on the parity bases, wherein the opposition and the authorities had equal representation in the election commissions. “Such a scenario would have given the opposition possibility to block decisions [of the election administrations]. That would have paralyzed the either system,” he said.
He also said that Levan Tarkhnishvili, the chairman of Central Election Commission, continued to retain his post because “no consensus” has been reached about who would have replaced him.
“Even talking about this issue became pointless because of the opposition’s unconstructive stance,” MP Bokeria said.
