Teona Akubardia, a member of the opposition For Georgia party founded by former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, said she is leaving the party days after Gakharia questioned the parliamentary boycott.
Akubardia joined Gakharia’s party ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections, after four years of serving as an MP from the opposition Strategy Agmashenebeli party.
She was among twelve For Georgia members whose mandates were terminated during the July 2 parliamentary session over their repeated absence amid an opposition boycott. On September 2, the GD parliament approved the credentials of 12 new members of the For Georgia party to replace the terminated MPs, while Gakharia, currently in exile, told media the party might reconsider the parliamentary boycott, calling it a “mistake.”
“After the unfair and unfree elections, I, like my twelve teammates, refused to grant legitimacy to Ivanishvili’s one-party parliament,” Akubardia wrote on Facebook on September 5, announcing her departure. “It’s not the refusal to enter the parliament that was the main mistake, but the absence of a unified vision around the common goal and mutual confrontation while the country faces a threat of losing sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The politician pledged to continue the “battle” independently and stay in the opposition “against the backdrop of the regime’s reversal of the country’s domestic and foreign course and mass repressions.”
The For Georgia party was one of four opposition groups to clear the 5% threshold in the disputed 2024 parliamentary elections. It joined the opposition’s boycott of the one-party legislature but, unlike the other three alliances, stopped short of formally renouncing its mandates.
The party, along with the Lelo/Strong Georgia alliance, plans to participate in the October 4 municipal vote, against the decision of 9 opposition parties to boycott the vote amid continued repression. Gakharia remains in exile in Germany as he faces two separate probes over his tenure as interior minister in 2019.
Also Read:
- 14/07/2025 – Lelo, Gakharia’s For Georgia Agree to Cooperate for Local Elections
- 04/07/2025 – Gakharia Defends Chorchana Checkpoint to Tsulukiani Commission as GD Revisits its Legacy
- 17/06/2025 – Treason or Opportunity – Opposition Squabbles over Municipal Elections
- 06/06/2025 – Anna Dolidze’s For People Leaves Lelo-Led Strong Georgia Coalition
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