Georgia would hold parliamentary elections on Oct. 1 as scheduled, the South Caucasus country's Central Election Commission (CEC) said Thursday.
"We have enough time, sufficient financial, material and human resources to organize the process," CEC Chairman Zurab Kharatishvili said.
President Mikheil Saakashvili set the poll date Wednesday.
Five of the 32 political parties registered with the CEC have so far registered for the elections, while those political parties now represented in the country's unicameral legislature can register for elections before Aug. 5.
The Georgian voter verification committee released a provisional list showing there are 3,385,844 voters, including those now residing abroad.
The committee, a state-funded institution under the CEC, said the list was not final.
A total of 3,544,770 registered voters took part in the 2010 local elections.
Of the 150 seats now in the legislature, 73 will be elected directly from single-seat constituencies and 77 will be distributed to political parties which pass the 5-percent threshold on the basis of how many votes they attract.
The ruling United National Movement party has 119 seats in the current parliament. Three opposition parties - the Christian Democratic Movement Party, the Labor Party and the Republican Party of Georgia - passed the 5-percent barrier at the last parliamentary elections. |