Nineteen political forces have submitted their electoral lists to the Central Election Commission for the first-ever fully proportional parliamentary election, to be held on 26 October with a five percent threshold. That’s less than half the number of parties on the 2020 ballot, which is unsurprising given the numerous mergers and coalitions of opposition forces to ensure no vote is wasted.
These mergers have produced four pro-Western opposition alliances with the best chance of crossing the 5% threshold. All of them have signed the President’s Georgian Charter, which provides for a year of technocratic government to pass EU reforms and has somehow both given the campaign the direction it needed but also made it a little less original. And then there are a few lone wolves who, according to the polls, might be teetering on the threshold and, many fear, may damage the opposition’s chances by wasting precious votes if they fall short.
Here is Nini and the Dispatch newsletter looking at the main opposition groups that will try to challenge the 12-year rule of the Georgian Dream in an election where every vote counts and every MP matters.
- UNM-led Unity: Good Old English & Computer
Unity – to Save Georgia, an opposition alliance led by the United National Movement, is the one projected to secure the most opposition votes. This is partly due to the domineering shadow of ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, the UNM’s imprisoned supreme leader, but also because the party seems to be recapturing its original “Knowing English’n’Computer” flair from the UNM’s millennial heyday when Saakashvili attracted bright and ambitious young people to breathe new life into a stagnant country. The best embodiment of this spirit is probably MP Tinatin Bokuchava, UNM’s leader and the top candidate on the list. A longtime UNM face, a niche Fletcher School graduate known for her English fluency, Bokuchava is disciplined and smart enough to shield herself from the more vicious attacks of the Georgian Dream. The worst insult her opponents have come up with so far is to dismiss her as a “beautiful woman.” Bokuchava, a headstrong mother of three, also best projects the image needed for a “strong family,” one of the key campaign promises of the coalition.
So does Giorgi Vashadze, No. 2 on the list, another energetic, ambitious, and innovative former UNM official. Vashadze, who founded his own party, Strategy Agmashebeli, and has been in an on-and-off relationship with his former employer (UNM), can’t help but look like someone’s busy son-in-law, especially the one your family holds up as a paragon of success to highlight your own failures — even though no one quite seems to know what he actually does. And the party will try to counter longtime allegations of “shadow rule” by Saakashvili by adding some fresh faces: the list also includes a couple of academics, a must-have these days, including museum director Lasha Bakradze, who became a former museum director after his inappropriate remarks gave (now also former) Culture Minister Tea Tsulukiani a long-awaited excuse to fire him. The team promises “prosperity in Europe” over “poverty in isolation,” billions from Brussels, visa-free travel to the U.S., and, of course, pensions of 1,000 lari (about $365).
- Coalition for Change: Tea Party
While UNM-Unity may be the choice for those who prefer originals to remakes, Coalition for Change is for those who want to try something new – even if it’s with old UNM-associated faces. The alliance unites Ahali – led by Nika Gvaramia and Nika Melia, Girchi More Freedom led by Zura Japaridze, and Droa led by Elene Khoshtaria. The alliance is fishing for some of the UNM votes and some of the youth votes, and it is probably the best example of long-forgotten positive campaigning… Well, sometimes excessively positive. Some of their video ads look like the opening credits of an old American sitcom. In other videos, the four leaders get together for what looks like a tea party, leaving viewers confused as to why they’re even part of their conversation (ok, it’s sparkling water and some shots they’re having, but “tea party” seems to better fit their political and economic views). And there are countless social media clips of them acting like your last four remaining drops of serotonin trying their best to keep you excited even when there’s nothing to be excited about.
But whatever the reason for this excitement, it may be more effective in mobilizing voters than the “others-are-worse-than-me” or “settle-for-me” attitudes. And content-wise, the coalition’s “Future Is Yours” campaign seems more interesting when viewed separately: Girchi’s young and inventive campaigners do a good job of appealing to Tbilisi’s youth, especially with their sassy clips; there are figures like Khoshtaria or Republican Khatuna Samnidze who don’t shy away from political taboos like speaking up for LGBTQ+ rights. And the two Nikas have the visibility and charm to collect votes from the rest of the country. Overall, the Coalition for Change has a large number of fresh or young faces on their list, and they have picked as their flagbearer… an actual flagbearer: the top MP candidate will be Nana Malashkhia, a civil servant and the famous lady who braved water cannons with the EU flag during the 2023 protests. Will her dedication land the coalition among the top-scoring opposition forces in late October? Let’s see.
- Lelo-Led Strong Georgia – Clean Freaks
We’d like to call the Strong Georgia alliance our own Professorenpartei, but a term coined for a German far-right party does little justice to a force that prides itself on its innocence. If you’re looking for a force with no blood on its hands (not counting MP Mamuka Mdinaradze’s bruised head after MP Aleko Elisashvili’s (in)famous punch), Strong Georgia might be the right choice. Led by ex-banker Mamuka Khazaradze’s Lelo for Georgia, the neither-GD-nor-UNM alliance has welcomed niche forces such as Anna Dolidze’s For People, Aleko Elisashvili’s Citizens, and Freedom Square filled with former activists. And, what’s most striking, the electoral list features a crazy number of professionals with academic credentials: if there’s one place where you can track down your ghosting professor for that reference letter, it’s probably at Strong Georgia party events.
The party’s best assets include Khazaradze’s money, Dolidze-Elisashvili’s past activism and ability to connect with voters, as well as Freedom Square’s professionalism – in case anyone may still need it. The alliance could also appeal to feminist-minded voters with one of the highest proportions of outspoken female top candidates who – you guessed it – actually get the job done. The party has everyone, and its campaign, framed as “Ilia’s Way” (a reference to Ilia Chavchavadze (1837-1907), Georgia’s most revered public figure) includes everything from new jobs to higher pensions to taxing gambling (it is not immediately clear what all of this has to do with Chavchavadze…the most evident link being that he was a banker, too).
But with so much eclectic cleanliness and goodness, the alliance runs the risk of being boring in a country that loves a thrill. Strong Georgia better add some fire to its campaign to avoid looking like an honest spouse who doesn’t cheat but doesn’t do anything interesting either, especially after the president’s failed efforts to unite them with former Prime Minister Gakharia’s party may have damaged them a bit. So, Mr. Khazaradze should stop making the world revolve around his deep-sea(ted) Anaklia port trauma and focus on doing something fun and relatable instead. Unless, of course, he thinks that Aleko Elisashvili walking on his hands for no reason in TikTok videos checks that box…
- Gakharia’s For Georgia – Blue Jeans, White Shirt
We all know who Mr. Giorgi Gakharia is: the ex-interior minister who was promoted to prime minister as a tormentor, left as a martyr, came back as opposition leader, disappeared again, and came back as a bad boy with kingmaker ambitions. But none of us knows who Mr. Gakharia really is. Many despise the former GD leader for his political past, including the Gavrilov Night protest dispersal, but even more are afraid of the past they know nothing about: after all, the man materialized out of nowhere, and all we know is that political analyst Gia Khukashvili, a once close confidant to GD founder Bidzina Ivanishvili (currently excommunicated) was the one who introduced him to the billionaire. The resume of the Georgian-born-and-raised Gakharia shows years of education and work in Russia, but you won’t find many who have met him in his past lives. This is enough in a close-knit country like Georgia to fuel the “Kremlin Man” conspiracy theories, even if Gakharia positions himself as an ardent pro-European.
But the charismatic and macho-ish ex-PM has accumulated enough political capital to go it alone. A passionate polemicist who likes to display the picture of Georgian logician and anti-imperialist Solomon Dodashvili on his office wall, Gakharia is a frequent guest on talk shows, where his confident tone can charm viewers into thinking he means what he says… even if it’s not always clear what he says, or means.
He promises “real” peace and prosperity and insists not to form a coalition government with either the UNM or the GD, hinting at some sort of minority government filled with compromise technocrats. Another promise is to cure the painful withdrawal symptoms of change-averse civil servants whose desire for stability is now at odds with the Georgian Dream’s ever-intensifying madness. Gakharia’s electoral list consists mainly of his loyalists from his time in government, as well as former GD deputies who rebelled against the ruling party when it was still a thing. And he seems to have enlisted some of them, like longtime progressive Dimitri Tskitishvili, to help him push his social-oriented agenda. As for widespread fears that he might ally with GD to form a government, the President seems to have tried to hedge the risks by tying him to her charter.
Honorable Mentions
- Labor Party – One Last Job
It looked like Labor Party leader Shalva Natelashvili was enjoying his quiet retirement, taking a break from decades of making noise and healing the wounds of failed efforts to lead the opposition boycott in 2020, when… Edison Research polls, commissioned by the opposition-leaning Formula TV, suddenly woke him from a long night of cryogenic sleep by chalking him at 5 percent. Since then, Natelashvili has been everywhere: roasting the Tbilisi mayor’s extravagance here, commenting on U.S. embassy posts there, holding meetings here, posing for reels there. For many years, the eccentric Natelashvili has been the first choice of the “I-hate-everyone-and-don’t-care-who-wins” voters, and, as this poll suggests, those voters haven’t gone anywhere. Well, unless those who distrust the poll precisely because it ranks the Labor Party so high are right. And opposition voters may never forgive him if Natelashvili gets somewhere between 3-5 percent and his wasted votes help GD win.
- Girchi – Enfant Terrible
Girchi Party is another force that is feared to waste opposition votes by ending up under five percent. A greater fear, however, is what will happen if they cross the threshold and team up with GD. It is common knowledge that the party that spared countless young men exploitative military service by “ordaining” them as religious officials has gained its own religious following in the process. The four rogue libertarian MPs, who split with Zura Girchi Japaridze’s group over child pornography remarks shortly after the 2020 elections, have mostly hung out with the opposition but made controversial deals with GD to abolish women’s quotas. And while the four have developed good skills in connecting with their voters, often through Facebook livestreams, they don’t rule out future deals with the current ruling party, making them key potential troublemakers in the upcoming elections.
Our summaries are by no means exhaustive profiles of the main opposition forces competing in the October elections. For more details, watch for Civil.ge’s other newsletters and commentaries in the coming weeks.