Early this week, on May 5, 2017, public hearings began across Georgia on constitutional amendments proposed by the ruling coalition. Ever since receiving a constitutional majority in parliament last year, Georgian Dream has prepared to change the country’s constitution.

Georgian Dream’s first step was to set up a Constitutional Reform Commission to develop draft constitutional amendments, which would later be subject to public debate and two parliamentary votes. The commission has been plagued by severe differences between Georgian Dream and opposition groups from the very start — many have left and boycotted the commission. In response, the opposition has voiced concerns over the commission’s plans to make the current mix of proportional and majoritarian systems into a strictly proportional one, keep the 5 percent parliamentary entry threshold for political parties, and abolish direct elections of the president, stating the ruling party will use these new changes to stay in power permanently.

However, opposition groups are yet to comment on Paragraph 94 of Georgia’s constitution. This particular paragraph forbids the raising of taxes by parliament without holding a special referendum, which can only be initiated by the government. This paragraph is part of Georgia’s Liberty Act, which former president Mikheil Saakashvili pushed through in 2010 in order to severely weaken future governments by limiting their sources of budget revenue and strangle the prospect of progressive taxation in the name of “freedom” for enterprise and market. In doing so, it entrenches libertarian ideology in the country’s constitution, to the detriment of desperate, working Georgians.