Ex-Defense Minister Okruashvili to Stand for Majoritarian MP in Gori

Ex-defense minister, Irakli Okruashvili, said he will run for majoritarian MP in the town of Gori in the October 8 parliamentary elections.

One of his competitors in this main town of the Shida Kartli region will be Irakli Alasania, who was defense minister before his Free Democrats (FD) party quit the Georgian Dream coalition in 2014.

Alasania, who initially was not going to stand for a majoritarian MP, announced about the intention to run in Gori on August 10 after FD’s candidate in Gori, MP Tamaz Shioshvili, decided to quit the race.

“I do not perceive Irakli Alasania as a competitor – not because I do not consider him a heavyweight [political figure], but because I have no idea what’s behind his decision to run in Gori,” Okruashvili said on August 12 when announcing his intention to run for majoritarian MP. “I can in advance express condolences over [Alasania’s decision] to enter this race in which he is doomed to fail.”

Ruling party, Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GDDG) nominated Ioseb Makrakhidze, a co-owner and chief executive of Gori-based asphalt manufacturing and road construction company Ibolia, as its majoritarian MP candidate in the town of Gori.

UNM opposition party has named as its majoritarian MP candidate in Gori a former senior law enforcement official in the Shida Kartli region, Alexandre Goglidze.

Other candidates, who have so far been named in Gori, are National Forum’s Guram Mchedlidze and State for People’s Shota Tskrialashvili.

In 2014 local elections, Okruashvili wanted to run for Gori mayor’s office, but he was barred from participation on the grounds of failure to meet two-year residency requirement. After that Okruashvili named as a mayoral candidate his close ally, who garnered up to 30% of votes, pushing the race into runoff in which he was defeated by the Georgian Dream’s candidate.

Okruashvili, who was an influential government member in ex-president Saakashvili’s administration before quitting the cabinet in November 2006, was arrested in September, 2007 just two days after launching an opposition party and voicing allegations against his former ally Mikheil Saakashvili. At that time he was charged with large scale extortion; less than two weeks after he was arrested, Okruashvili pleaded guilty, retracted his allegations leveled against Saakashvili and was released on bail; he then left the country in what his supporters said was in fact expulsion. He had lived in France, where he was granted asylum, before returning back to Georgia in November, 2012 after change of government. While remaining in France, Okruashvili re-emerged briefly in Georgia’s political developments in spring 2011 when his party joined ex-parliamentary speaker Nino Burjanadze-backed street protest rallies but the alliance was short-lived. After he returned back in Georgia some of the charges brought against him by the previous authorities were dropped by the prosecution and he was cleared of some other charges by the court in January, 2013.

In March, 2016 Okruashvili was appointed as an aide to chairman of Gori City Council (Sakrebulo) – chairmanship is held by Okruashvili’s close ally from his Georgian Party, which garnered over 28% of votes in 2014 local elections in the town of Gori.

Georgia has a mixed electoral system in which 73 lawmakers in 150-seat Parliament are elected in 73 single-member constituencies, known in Georgia as “majoritarian” mandates.

A majoritarian MP candidate has to win over 50% of votes in order to be an outright winner otherwise a second round should be held.

The rest 77 seats in the Parliament are allocated proportionally under the party-list contest among political parties, which clear 5% threshold in nationwide popular vote.