Joseph Larsen and Bidzina Lebanidze
GIP Analysts

Single party rule is returning to Georgia. The ruling Georgian Dream party won 48 of 50 runoff elections for majoritarian electoral districts on October 30. Add that to the 67 seats it won during the first round of voting on October 8—Georgia’s mixed parliamentary system allocates 77 seats according to a proportional system and 73 seats according to first-past-the-post—and it will occupy 115 of 150 seats in the new parliament.

That’s significantly larger than the 85 seats Georgian Dream won while pooling efforts with several coalition partners in 2012. Now it will be free to rule without coalition support. Plus, it will have a constitutional majority: having passed the 113-seat threshold, its parliamentarians will have the power to amend the constitution without consent from any other parties in parliament. The new parliament will break down as follows: Georgian Dream will have 115 seats, followed by the United National Movement with 27, the Alliance of Patriots with six, the Industrialists with one, and the last seat going to pro-Georgian Dream independent Salome Zourabichvili.