Ex-member of Free Democrats open to cooperating with Gov’t
Tweet 
Share
A former member of opposition Free Democrats party, Zurab Abashidze, will not rule out cooperating with the next Government formed by the ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GDDG) party.
Why should I not cooperate with the Government? We [Free Democrats] have great experience in cooperating with the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party, even when we were in the opposition,” Abashidze told local newspaper Kviris Palitra five days after he quit the Free Democrats party.
Abashidze stressed the only party he would never work with was primary opposition United National Movement (UNM), the party that ruled Georgia from 2003 to 2012.
Abashidze was one of seven key members of Free Democrats that quit the party after the October 8 Parliamentary Elections. Preliminary results of the vote showed the party failed to overcome the minimum five percent threshold to gain a seat in Parliament.
The party's founder, Georgia’s ex-Minister of Defence Irakli Alasania, was among those who left Free Democrats.
Free Democrats was part of the Georgian Dream coalition, established by ex-Prime Minister Bidzina Ivansihvili prior to the 2012 Parliamentary Elections to defeat the nine-year rule of UNM.
Free Democrats quit the coalition in 2014 when Alasania was dismissed as Defence Minister and moved into the parliamentary opposition. The party participated separately in this year’s Parliamentary Elections.
Five top figures of Free Democrats opposition party have quit, citing the party's poor performance in the elections as a reason for their decision to step down.
Irakli Alasania, Georgia’s former Minister of Defence and leader of opposition party Free Democrats, has made an announcement he is temporarily leaving politics.
Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s former Prime Minister and founder of the ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GDDG) party, has ranked the political parties competing in next month’s Parliamentary Elections.
A new opposition party will soon appear in the Georgian political arena after the Free Democrats (FD) held their third party congress in Tbilisi today.
The Free Democrats opposition party has removed four of five majoritarian candidates ahead of the October 31 parliamentary elections as ‘they have zero chance of winning’ the race according to the polls conducted by the party.