Eight-Party Opposition Coalition to Run on Joint Ticket
The opposition coalition, now numbering eight parties following the Republicans’ decision to run independently, said it would run on a joint ticket in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The bloc now includes: Conservative; Georgia’s Way; Freedom; On Our Own; the Georgian Troupe (Kartuli Dasi); Party of People; National Forum and the Movement for United Georgia (ex-Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili’s party). Two individual opposition politicians – MP Levan Gachechiladze and Giorgi Khaindrava, a former state minister for conflict resolution issues – are also members.
“The National Council [the coalition of the remaining eight parties] will run in the parliamentary elections on a joint ticket with our [former] presidential candidate Levan Gachechiladze at the top of the bloc’s list [of MP candidates],” Koba Davitashvili, the leader of Party of People, said as he stood beside other bloc leaders at a news conference. “We believe that victory against illegality, violence and fraud is possible only through unity. We will soon set up our election campaign office and launch the election campaign. The slogan and goal of the United Public Movement remains unchanged. This is: Georgia First and Foremost and Georgia without Saakashvili.”
Like many other bloc leaders, Koba Davitashvili refused to comment on the Republican Party’s decision to run independently. MP Zviad Dzidziguri of the Conservative Party, however, did say that the decision was “a mistake.”
“I think they made a mistake, a serious mistake,” he told Civil.Ge on February 29. “It was a mistake because the public wants to see a united opposition.”
