In Georgia, parties who nominate women as candidates for deputies to receive extra funding

In Georgia, the political parties, which have overcome the electoral threshold and which have put at least two women on their party lists of ten candidates, will receive additional funding from the state budget in the amount of 10 percent. The relevant amendments were made in late December last year in the Law "On Political Associations of Citizens".

When experts of the Venice Commission studied the draft of the Electoral Code of Georgia, they recommended fixing quotas for women in party lists. According to the experts, the Georgian Parliament has very few female deputies. Thus, the Parliament of the current convocation has nine women out of 150 MPs.

Rusudan Kervalishvili, Vice Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, views the fixing of quotas for women as a "great achievement". "This is the first step that allows political parties to get interested in assessing women and their participation in political processes," she said.

In the opinion of Magda Anikashvili, a member of the oppositional parliamentary faction of Christian-Democrats, women's participation in political processes is "restoration of justice." "According to statistics, women make most of the Georgian population; and they should participate in decision-making. The parties will have no problems to find decent women-professionals; they are present in different spheres of public life; they just need to be integrated into politics," said the MP.

However, the NGOs, which took part in wording the draft Electoral Code, have challenged the recommendation of the experts of the Venice Commission on fixing quotas for women on party lists. According to their opinion, the distribution of positions on lists may become a subject for deals.

"Fixing quotas for women-MPs may entails deals in parties and subsequent sale of position on party lists, creating artificial barriers on the way to MP posts," said Nino Khatiskatsi, an activist of the "Transparency International – Georgia".

According to Mikhail Devdariani, the leader of the NGO "New Generation – New Initiative", now in Georgia "the women who figure in politics have no weight; they make no important decisions, and they can't influence political processes."