Eleven members of former and exiled Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia’s opposition For Georgia party took their seats in Georgia’s disputed Parliament on October 28, ending a yearlong boycott of the legislature dominated by ruling Georgian Dream MPs and rejected by other opposition groups after the contested October 26, 2024, general elections.
Party member Giorgi Sharashidze announced the decision to end the parliamentary boycott on October 20, saying the move aims to “fight for the survival of free thought” and to “bring another truth in this country to light.”
This followed the Georgian Dream MPs’ September move to approve mandates for twelve new For Georgia MPs, two months after the mandates of the party’s original twelve candidates were terminated due to their prolonged absences amid the opposition’s boycott. Other opposition groups had earlier renounced their mandates.
For Georgia’s eleven MPs who entered the disputed parliament are Gela Abuladze, Jemal Ananidze, Ketevan Bakaradze, Malkhaz Toria, Shalva Kereselidze, Salome Kobaladze, Giga Parulava, Vika Pilpani, Giorgi Sharashidze, Tamar Khvedeliani, and Sopio Khorguani.
One more member, Rusudan Tevzadze, announced days earlier her decision to give up her seat and leave the party altogether, citing “extremely difficult domestic and foreign challenges” and calling it a “difficult but morally correct decision.” Several members had already quit in September after Gakharia hinted that the boycott had been a “mistake.”
“It is welcoming that one political group, one party, has recognized the will of the people, acknowledged democracy, and begun to exercise its parliamentary mandates,” Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili said at the opening of today’s plenary session, where For Georgia MPs were present.
“Unfortunately, some [opposition] parties have burned their bridges and […] deprived both themselves and, above all, their voters of the opportunity for their voices to be heard in the Parliament of Georgia,” Papuashvili added.
In his first address to Parliament, Giorgi Sharashidze, a key member of For Georgia, said the party entered the legislature “out of respect for the Georgian people and in recognition of the reality that we failed to offer them a better alternative.”
“We are now ready to accept this challenge and bring back the people’s voice and differing opinions to Parliament, which, above all, belongs solely to the Georgian people,” he added.
“The truth is bitter,” Sharashidze said. “You will have to hear this truth from us in Parliament. You will have to accept that from today, this will no longer be your party’s office, and you will first and foremost have to hear differing opinions and the voice of the Georgian people from us.”
For Georgia has been the only opposition group among the four that cleared the mandatory 5% threshold in the 2024 parliamentary elections, not to formally renounce its seats, leaving open the possibility of eventually taking them up.
The party leader, Giorgi Gakharia, remains in exile due to two ongoing investigations into his 2019 tenure as interior minister.
Unlike other opposition groups, For Georgia also participated in the October 4 local elections together with another major opposition alliance, Lelo/Strong Georgia, which remains in a parliamentary boycott after Georgian Dream terminated its lawmakers’ mandates.
The disputed Parliament’s Speaker, Shalva Papuashvili, is set to hold a briefing today on the ruling party’s constitutional lawsuit seeking to ban opposition parties.
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