President of Georgia vetoes law abolishing quotas for women in elections

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili refused to sign a law abolishing quotas for women on party lists in parliamentary elections, Speaker of Parliament Shalva Papuashvili said at a meeting of the Parliament Bureau, Report informs via TASS.

“We have received a veto on changes to the electoral code regarding gender quotas. We will refer this issue to the Legal Affairs Committee, which will consider it, and only then bring it to the plenary meeting,” Papuashvili said.

If parliament overrides the president's veto, the law will again be sent to the president for signature. If Zourabichvili refuses to sign the law for the second time, the speaker of parliament will sign it, after which it will come into force.

On April 4, the Parliament of Georgia, in the third and final reading, approved a law abolishing quotas for women. The document was initiated by the opposition political group Girchi. According to the current article of the Electoral Code, on the party lists of political forces participating in parliamentary elections, one of every four candidates for MP must be a woman. According to the initiators, women in Georgia do not experience any obstacles in their political careers and do not require a special quota. And the presence of a quota in the legislation indicates that women are allegedly oppressed in the country.