Parliament Speaker to Stand for Reelection as Majoritarian MP in Tbilisi

Speaker of the outgoing Parliament, Davit Usupashvili, said he will lead Republican Party’s list of MP candidates and will also stand as a majoritarian MP candidate in one of Tbilisi’s single-mandate constituencies.

Usupashvili, who was elected in the Parliament from Tbilisi’s Saburtalo single-mandate constituency in 2012 when the Republicans ran in elections as part of the Georgian Dream coalition, will seek re-election in the same constituency; after the redistricting, Saburtalo was split into three separate constituencies and Usupashvili will run in one of those.

A member of Tbilisi City Council and former deputy mayor of the capital city, Sevdia Ugrekhelidze, is running in the same constituency as United National Movement (UNM) party’s candidate. Free Democrats party has nominated MP Shalva Shavgulidze in the same constituency.

Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GDDG) ruling party has not yet named its candidates in Tbilisi’s 22 single-mandate constituencies.

The ruling party may not nominate its candidate in at least one of Tbilisi’s district as it is considering backing ex-Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili, who is running as an independent candidate in Tbilisi’s Mtatsminda district.

Usupashvili said in an interview with Imedi TV on July 29 that as of now there is no similar agreement with the GDDG ruling party on backing his candidacy in the majoritarian race.

Georgia has a mixed electoral system in which 77 seats are allocated proportionally under the party-list contest among political parties, which clear 5% threshold in nationwide popular vote.

The rest of the 73 lawmakers in 150-seat Parliament are elected in 73 single-member constituencies, known in Georgia as “majoritarian” mandates; a candidate has to win over 50% of votes in order to be an outright winner in the first round, otherwise a second round should be held.