Lelo leader officially requests parliament suspend his MP status
Mamuka Khazaradze at the opposition rally in front of the parliament building late on October 31. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.
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Lelo opposition party leader Mamuka Khazaradze has officially requested parliament earlier today to suspend his MP status to ‘continue the fight on the street’ for the annulment of the recent municipal election results.
The Parliament's Committee for Procedural Issues will discuss the request next week and then it will be voted on at a plenary session.
If at least 76 MPs in the 150-member parliament support the suspension of his status, Khazaradze will lose his MP mandate.
The Girchi - More Freedom leader, Zurab Japaridze, has also made the same request.
Lelo, the United National Movement (UNM), Girchi - More Freedom and several other parties have accused the Georgian Dream government of fabricating the election results and announced rallies and took to the street.
Lelo for Georgia party says Khazaradze officially requested the suspension of his MP status.
Khazaradze entered politics back in 2019, shortly after he was charged with laundering 16.7 million USD along with another founder of TBC Bank Badri Japaridze.
Lelo for Georgia won four seats in parliament in the 2020 parliamentary elections.
In the recent municipal elections Lelo candidates failed to win any of the mayoral constituencies as the GD candidates have won 63 of the 64 constituencies, while the UNM candidate won only one.
Lelo received 2.71% of the vote in the proportional part of the race, came fourth after the GD, the UNM and the For Georgia parties.
MP from the United National Movement (UNM) Eka Kherkheulidze has said that the ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili asks the opposition MPs to refrain from renouncing their mandates before the election bill providing for a lower election threshold is approved. Saakashvili, who had previously urged the opposition to leave their MP seats, has seemingly changed his mind after the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) head Irakli Kobakhidze noted that the ruling party has ‘no obligation’ to support the election bill for a lower threshold.
The Lelo - Partnership for Georgia faction, composed of seven opposition MPs, has boycotted parliament's plenary sessions until arrested former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, is brought to a civil clinic to receive ‘proper medical care’ after a 33-day hunger strike.
Former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, has from prison urged opposition MPs to leave their mandates in protest, stating that the Georgian Dream (GD) government fabricated the results of recent municipal elections.
The Georgian parliament has suspended the MP status of Lelo party founder Mamuka Khazaradze and leader of the Girchi-More Freedom opposition party Zurab Japaridze earlier today with 79 votes in the 150-member state legislature, per their request.
Founder of the Lelo opposition party Mamuka Khazaradze says that Georgia is ‘facing existential threats,’ from Russia and pro-Russian forces in Georgia, and states that a ‘powerful national platform’ should be created which will ensure the presence of the US military in Georgia, a rapid signing of a free trade agreement with the US, and the adoption of a lustration law to reveal spies of enemies in the public service.
The Lelo opposition party has been able to re-create a faction in parliament as the MP from the United National Movement - United Opposition election bloc Dilar Khabuliani decided to join.
The leader of the Lelo opposition party, Mamuka Khazaradze, has said that he will move to the western Georgian town of Tsalenjikha, and assist the newly appointed opposition mayor. Khazaradze announced his decision while delivering his speech at the opposition rally in the city of Zugdidi last evening.