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Rallies demanding proportional elections held in Georgia’s Batumi

Opposition activists promised to bring more people to the streets after the New Year holodays

TBILISI, December 22. /TASS/. A rally demand parliamentary elections in 2020 under the proportional representation system was held in Georgia’s resort city of Batumi, the Georgian Imedi television company said on Sunday.

"Our demands stay unchanged - we want to have back our stolen elections. Let them (the authorities - TASS) do what they promised: Georgian’s people should elect their future government themselves," Zaal Udumashvili, a member of the opposition United National Movement party and an ex-popular TV host, told Imedi.

People began to gather in different districts of Batumi at 14:00 local time (13:00 Moscow time) and marched to the Rose Square to join a more than an hour-long rally. Opposition activists promised to bring more people to the streets after the New Year holodays.

Rallies in Georgia have been held since November 14, when the parliament refused to support the idea of constitutional changes concerning the 2020 parliamentary elections on the basis of a proportional system with a zero threshold. Most lawmakers from the ruling party that had initiated the bill opposed this idea.

Opposition and civil activists put the blame entirely on the leader of the ruling party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who had announced transition from the mixed system to the proportional one ahead of the forthcoming elections.

Since the outbreak of the protests, demonstrators have twice blocked the parliamentary building in Tbilisi, with the police using water cannons to disperse the rallies in both cases. Activists pledge to continue protests until their demands are satisfied.

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