Ex-President Saakashvili urges opposition parties to make joint election list for October’s polls
Parliamentary elections will be held in Georgia on October 31, 2020. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge
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Former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili has called on opposition parties to unite their election lists for the upcoming, October parliamentary polls in Georgia.
Let’s put aside our ambitions and unite all of the political groups in a single list - this is the most precise and right form of unity”, Saakashvili said.
Saakashvili, who currently serves as the chair of the executive committee of the Ukrainian National Reforms Council, said the parliamentary election is ‘a very big challenge’ and the ruling Georgian Dream party chairperson Bidzina Ivanishvili ‘will not give up anything by himself’.
- Opposition may nominate joint candidates if electoral system remains unchanged in upcoming elections
Saakashvili said ‘it is very difficult to act against such regimes’ without united forces. He therefore welcomed the opposition's steps aimed to coordinate the actions.
Opposition European Georgia memmber Gigi Ugulava hoped that as the parties have reached an election agreement Saakashvili’s desire for more unity will not endanger the already existing unity between the opposition parties on selecting majoritarian candidates.
Leader of New Georgia Giorgi Vashadze finds Saakashvili’s suggestion interesting, saying his team was and remains among those who support consolidation of opposition forces.
However, he said, 'the first stage of consolidation’ should be the agreement between opposition the on joint majoritarian candidates.
Several opposition parties adopted a joint statement earlier today, after making an election deal with the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party yesterday, stating that despite the agreement on the 2020 elections, the ruling party and the opposition still fail to agree about the status of people ‘detained on political grounds.’
The Georgian opposition parties plan to nominate joint majoritarian candidates if the upcoming parliamentary elections later this year will be held per the existing electoral system, with 77 seats in the legislative body distributed via proportional voting and the remaining 73 via the majoritarian system.
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili announced today that she is pardoning Georgian opposition politicians Gigi Ugulava and Irakli Okruashvili, which she said was ‘a very difficult decision’. Salome Zurabishvili said although she is very well aware of the ‘real actions and crimes’ of the two former officials, Ugulava and Okruashvili, nevertheless, as the president, she is pardoning them for the sake of 'the country’s interests’.
Transparency International Georgia has urged the Georgian Dream government to start discussions as to how to hold the upcoming parliamentary elections in the autumn in a safe environment amid coronavirus-related restrictions.
Georgian opposition parties have named six of eight joint majoritarian candidates for Tbilisi in the upcoming parliamentary elections in the Autumn.
Central Election Commission (CEC) head Tamar Zhvania spoke to Rustavi 2 about how the vote in the parliamentary elections on October 31 will take place given the coronavirus.