MP Joins Alasania’s Party

A lawmaker, Giorgi Tsagareishvili, said on March 29 that he had joined Our Georgia-Free Democrats (OGFD), an opposition party led by Tbilisi mayoral candidate Irakli Alasania.

As a result of the decision, OGFD now has one representative in the Parliament.

Tsagareishvili told Civil.Ge that he had become a member of OGFD’s political council – party’s main decision-making body.

Tsagareishvili has changed party affiliation for number of times in the past.

He has been an independent lawmaker since April 2009, when he quit Democratic Party of Georgia, led by MP Gia Tortladze.

Before setting up Democratic Party of Georgia together with MP Tortladze – the both were part of an opposition coalition and were elected in the Parliament after running on the coalition’s party-list. But they quit the coalition after refusing to follow other members of the coalition to renounce their parliamentary seats following the May, 2008 elections.

From 2007 to 2008, for about nine months, Tsagareishvili was a member of Movement for United Georgia, party established by ex-defense minister Irakli Okruashvili.

Before joining Okruashvili’s party, Tsagareishvili was a lawmaker from the Industrialist Party.

Zurab Abashidze, a senior member of OGFD said on March 29, that Tsagareishvili was a person “with huge experience” and “together with us he will play an important role in change of the current government.”

OGFD is a member of Alliance for Georgia, also uniting Republican and New Rights parties, as well as ex-public defender Sozar Subari.

Tsagareishvili, however, said that although he had joined OGFD, it did not automatically mean that he was representing the Alliance for Georgia.

“From now on I will be representing OGFD in the Parliament, but not the Alliance for Georgia,” he told Civil.Ge.

Tsagareishvili, however, denied speculation that New Rights and Republicans were against of this move by OGFD to recruit him.

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