Ex-TV Anchor Plans Christian-Democratic Party

Giorgi Targamadze, a former TV anchor who last week quit Imedi television station, said he would establish a new political party with, in his words, ?a Christian-Democratic ideology.?

?My preference is for the creation of a new political force,? Targamadze said in a live political talk-show, Primetime, aired on Rustavi 2 TV on January 14. ?Together with my friends and co-thinkers [whom he didn’t name] I had been thinking about a non-governmental organisation to promote Christian-Democratic ideology; so now the political party will be created based on this ideology.?

Targamadze chaired the parliamentary faction of ex-Adjarian leader Aslan Abashidze?s Revival Union party until March 2003, when he resigned from Parliament and politics altogether.

Targamadze said that it would not be ?fully correct? to say that he was making a political comeback. ?When I was in Revival Union, it was not my politics; now I am creating my and my co-thinkers? movement,? he said. Targamadze, however, insisted he was not trying to distance himself from his own political past. ?I am proud of that and there is nothing in my voting record [while in Parliament] that would make me ashamed,? he added.

Targamadze refused to give a direct answer when asked what his relationship would be with Imedi-co-owner Badri Patarkatsishvili and the proposed political party his associates are to establish. Instead, he said he was grateful to Patarkatsishvili for creating Imedi TV.

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