(Bloomberg) -- Georgia’s parliament set Dec. 14 as the date for selecting a new president, as lawmakers continue to meet despite an opposition boycott over the results of last month’s elections.
The president will be chosen by the country’s Electoral College consisting of 300 people, including all members of parliament, under constitutional changes taking effect this year. A candidate needs two-thirds of the vote to win. If no candidate secures 200 votes, a second round of balloting will be held between the two highest vote-getters.
Parliament also scheduled the president’s inauguration for Dec. 29.
Yesterday, the ruling Georgian Dream party convened the parliament and ratified the outcome of the October elections, despite an ongoing review by the Constitutional Court in response to a motion the opposition filed over the election’s legality. Lawmakers later will vote on confirming Irakli Kobakhidze to continue on as prime minister.
Following weeks of rallies over alleged fraud in last month’s vote, crowds of people marched across the city and demonstrated outside the legislature before it convened on Monday for its first session. Protesters threw eggs at the parliament and stamped on steel barriers to make noise, after police prevented them from approaching the building’s entrances.
Since the election, law enforcement has twice broken up an opposition camp in the center of Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, and has detained more than a dozen people.
The current president, the pro-Europe Salome Zourabichvili, was the last to be elected by popular vote.
“I pity every member of parliament who sat there today with frozen expressions because they know they are the result of rigged elections,” she said in a video address Monday. “The parliament, or rather the ruling party, a single party, has trampled on the Constitution.”
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