MP Calls for Opposition’s Tbilisi Mayor Single Candidate

Leader of the Conservative Party MP Koba Davitashvili called on the opposition parties on June 1 to nominate a single candidate for the Tbilisi Mayor position in local self-governance elections, tentatively scheduled for November.

Leader of the opposition Georgia’s Way party and ex-Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili said recently that she wants to run for Tbilisi Mayor. MP Koba Davitashvili himself also announced his Tbilisi Mayor ambitions last year. The ruling National Movement party has already nominated current Mayor of Tbilisi Gigi Ugulava for this position.

“The opposition candidates should not waste time in competing with each other. I call on all the opposition parties to negotiate a single candidate. We will have a real chance of victory in this case,” MP Davitashvili told Imedi television. 

He also said that Gigi Ugulava will not be a serious contender for the opposition’s single candidate in the election.

According to the law, the 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 a 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.

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