Opposition Rallies Outside Parliament

An eight-party opposition coalition protest rally is in progress outside Parliament.

Opposition supporters started gathering outside the parliament on Rustaveli Avenue at 2pm.

Politicians from the opposition New Rights Party, including its leader MP Davit Gamkrelidze, have also shown up. The New Rights were undecided until Saturday on whether to join the rally or not.

Republican Party leaders, however, have not joined the protest, although some leaders of the party said earlier they would.

“We are not going to disperse until our demands are met,” MP Zviad Dzidziguri of the Conservative Party, part of the eight-party coalition, told Civil.Ge on March 9.

Koba Davitashvili, the leader of Party of People, as well as Jondi Bagaturia, leader of Georgian Troupe – both part of the coalition – said the protest rally’s major demand would be a recount of votes of the January 5 presidential election, which, they said, would lead to a repeat presidential election.

Gia Tortladze of the Movement for United Georgia Party, also part of the coalition, however, focused in his address to opposition supporters at the rally on Parliament’s recent controversial decision on the rule of electing majoritarian MPs.

“We will not stop protest rallies unless we have a situation wherein it would be possible to hold genuinely free and fair parliamentary elections,” MP Tortladze told the protest rally.