Davit Narmania named mayoral candidate for Georgian Dream
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Monday, November 25
Minister of Regional Development and Infrastructure, Davit Narmania, 34, will be the Georgian Dream coalition’s mayoral candidate in Tbilisi for the local elections scheduled for spring of 2014. The Georgian Dream confirmed the information in a letter released on November 22.
“The coalition’s political council discussed the issue and the current Minister of Infrastructure was named on the post,” the statement reads.
Narmania is ready to take the responsibility. He stressed that he will be more of a technical rather than political mayor.
“Consultations were ongoing between myself and the coalition leaders. I am ready to be where the country needs and, in this particular case, to tackle the difficult challenges that the capital faces,” Narmania said, noting that he will strengthen Tbilisi as he did regarding the Ministry of Infrastructure.
Head of the National Security Council, Irine Imerlishvili, emphasized that Tbilisi requires a Mayor like Narmania and not similar to the current Mayor Gigi Ugulava.
“Tbilisi needs a business executive person and not a person who is focused on making political statements” Imerlishvili said. She stated that Narmania would launch the election campaign when he quits the current position. Imerlishvili did not specify when Narmania might leave the Ministry.
The United National Movement (UNM) representatives, Akaki Minashvili and Giorgi Kandelaki, stated that Narmania has no political experience and he halted the very important infrastructural projects after he took office.
“It will be very difficult for Narmania to continue the building process of Tbilisi. When he came to power he stopped many essential projects, including in Tbilisi, including the by-pass railway of the capital,” Minashvili stated.
Narmania responded saying that the bypass railway was not under the supervision of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the minority members should have known concerning the issue.
Head of the Elections and Political Technologies Research Centre, Kakha Kakhishvili, described Narmania as a qualified and honest person. However, he advised Narmania to quit his post as soon as possible.
“The mayoral elections are not scheduled and the coalition named its mayoral candidate. Narmania is still a minister and he can hold meetings and carry out various actions through administrative resources,” Kakhishvili said.
According to him the situation creates an unequal environment between the mayoral candidates thus it will be fair if Namania leaves his position and carries out his election campaign only afterwards.
