Ex-Foreign Minister Signals Tbilisi Mayor Ambition

Ex-Foreign Minister and the leader of opposition Georgia’s Way opposition party Salome Zourabichvili told Droeba weekly program aired by Imedi television on May 28 that she will run for capital city Tbilisi Mayor’s position.

Local self-governance elections are tentatively scheduled for November, 2006.

According to the law, Tbilisi Mayor will be elected by the Tbilisi City Council – Sakrebulo, where 25 members will be elected through a first-past-the-post, “winner takes all” system, while the remaining 12 seats will be distributed, through so called a “compensatory list,” among those parties which garner at least 4% of votes in all ten constituencies of the capital city. The 37-member elected City Council will then elect the Tbilisi Mayor from among its members. The candidate will have to win at least 2/3 of the total votes in the council.

Salome Zourabichvili told Droeba program that she does not consider “indirect election of a Mayor as undemocratic” – position which is different from those voiced by the rest of opposition politicians in Georgia.

Most of the opposition parties, which see the Tbilisi Mayor’s position as a political counterweight to the President, demand direct elections of the city Mayor. They claim that the authorities “are afraid” of a directly elected Mayor because then the Tbilisi Mayor is bound to become “a serious political figure.” Approximately one-third of the Georgian voters live in the capital city Tbilisi.

Leader of the opposition Conservative Party MP Koba Davitashvili also announced last year that he plans to run for the Tbilisi Mayor’s position.