The Strong Georgia Coalition, another opposition political force that successfully passed the five percent threshold in the parliamentary elections, is renouncing its MP mandates, Mamuka Khazaradze, one of the coalition’s leaders, said on November 14.
Earlier, two other opposition forces, Coalition for Change and Unity-UNM, made a similar decision and asked the Central Election Commission (CEC) to renounce their MP mandates. This left ex-Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia’s For Georgia party as the only opposition force crossing the threshold and not publicly dropping its mandates. Its members repeat that the party “will not give legitimacy to the parliament.” This formula does not satisfy the other three coalitions, which harbor doubts that former PM Gakharia may decide to take up the MP seats.
“It is decisive that none of the opposition forces that have received legislative mandates do not give legitimacy to the Georgian Dream Parliament and refuse to use the mandates they have been given,” Khazaradze wrote on social media.
He suggested to the other opposition forces that they jointly go through the relevant procedural acts of renunciation of MP mandates “to put an end to interpretations and not allow anyone to speculate on this issue.” “For more publicity, we are ready to carry out this political act in agreement with the President and her involvement,” he added.
Four opposition forces—Coalition for Change, Unity-UNM, Strong Georgia, and Gakharia-For Georgia—passed the mandatory five percent threshold in the October 26 parliamentary elections. However, all of them say the elections were rigged. So far, they stand firm in their refusal to accept MP mandates, but the mistrust among these forces is also considerable.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze encouraged doubts and tried to drive a wedge between the opponents. “I think that in the end, all of them will enter parliament,” he said in an interview with the Georgian Public Broadcaster on November 14. Still, he also emphasized that the Georgian Dream would prefer to govern alone. “These political parties have no resources… They will bring nothing good to the parliament. They are so destructive and radical in their nature that their participation in parliamentary life will only be counterproductive,” he added.
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