Opposition Coalition Takes Timeout
Opposition coalition leaders said after three hours of consultations on June 17 that they would suspend activities until September and use the time to consider future options.
“Summer is a dead season for any vigorous political activities,” Davit Gamkrelidze, the New Rights Party leader, told journalists after the meeting. “We need more time to agree on strategic matters and also to develop proper tactics.”
He said consultations would continue not only within the coalition, but also with other opposition parties boycotting Parliament, meaning the Labor Party and the Republican Party.
“The entire united opposition, except for those people, who made a decision [to enter Parliament] will continue working over what kind of strategy and tactics should be used in order to achieve success and this success will mean an end to the Saakashvili regime and the establishment of democracy in Georgia,” Gamkrelidze said.
The meeting, which was held in the New Rights Party headquarters in Tbilisi, was attended by leaders and representatives of all six coalition parties. Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, the leader of the Freedom Party, however, left before the meeting had ended.
He told journalists that he had presented other members a set of preconditions necessary for his party’s continued participation in the bloc. The restoration of consensus-based decision-making was one of the preconditions, he said. He demanded the abolition of the so-called three-member political council, consisting of Davit Gamkrelidze, Levan Gachechiladze – an individual member of the coalition – and Salome Zourabichvili, leader of Georgia’s Way Party. Some politicians that have already quit the coalition cited the New Rights Party’s dominant role in the coalition as one of the reasons behind their decision.
Other leaders from the coalition had little to say about the Freedom Party’s demands, other than to say that the issues raised were open to negotiations.
The opposition coalition has been reshaped several times since it was formed in October, 2007. The biggest shake-up followed the elections when two small parties – On Our Own and Georgian Troupe – as well as two individual members quit the bloc. Their exit was due to a refusal to boycott Parliament, as other coalition members have done.
