Social-Democrats to Run Independently in Parliament Polls

The Social-Democrats party, which runs a seven-member parliamentary faction in the Georgian Dream majority group, will run independently in the parliamentary elections in 2020, MP Beka Natsvlishvili told reporters today. 

Natsvlishvili, who serves as the deputy chair of the Georgian Dream – Social-Democrats faction, spoke on the party’s political plans, as well as on its stance concerning the ongoing dispute in the majority group. 

“We will have a lot of [legislative] proposals in near future … including on the pension reform, taxation, economy, agriculture,” Natsvlishvili said, adding that if their initiatives failed to enjoy majority support, and there were “no ground for further discussion on these issues,” the Social-Democrats faction would “continue its political activities independently.”

The lawmaker then stressed that that “how the party decides to compete in elections” was “more important.” “Here, I can confirm that we will run independently in the [2020] parliamentary elections,” he noted.

Natsvlishvili commented on the Georgian Dream dispute earlier as well, criticizing Parliament Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze’s April 9 words that “[around] three-four lawmakers made mistakes in their statements.”

“Listing the number of lawmakers, who presumably did not fit the overall context, was not right,” he said. “If I have a slight feeling that anyone [in the majority group] thinks that other persons are bandwagoning … I will be the first one to leave the majority group, and I am sure my teammates will follow.”

Three lawmakers of the Social-Democrats party entered the Parliament on Georgian Dream’s party ticket in 2016. The group managed to establish a faction following the transfer of lawmakers from the Georgian Dream faction, the biggest in the parliamentary majority group.