National Forum initiates pro-Western coalition
By Tea Mariamidze
Thursday, October 13
A member of the National Forum party, Kakha Shartava, says it is necessary to form a “real, genuine, serious and classical European-style type of party”, and is holding consultations with other parties to start this process.
“We are ready to establish such a party, and ready to be the victims of this process with the other parties, if they also have such a desire,” stated Shartava.
He also slammed the results of the October 8 parliamentary elections, saying the government “falsified the elections and appropriated thousands of votes”, which he claimed belonged to the National Forum and other parties.
“Unfortunately, we and the other parties failed to convince voters of the need for a multi-party system," said Shartava.
The leader of the New Rights party, Mamuka Katsitadze is skeptical over Shartava’s initiative.“I know today's political spectrum and ambitions, and it seems to me too unrealistic to abolish certain political parties and create a new party with other forces; it is a highly artificial attempt at garnering support,” Katsitadze stressed, however he later somewhat contradicted himself by stating that the New Rights are always ready to create “pro-European strong coalition”.
The Leader of the New Georgia party, Giorgi Vashadze believes it is too early to think about the creation of a new pro-Western coalition yet.
“I think it is too early to discuss this issue, however we are ready for dialogue with pro-Western forces,” Vashadze said.
The National Forum was the part of the ruling GD Coalition until April 4 2016m when it announced that it was quitting the political bloc in order to independently run in the October 8 parliamentary elections.
However, the National Forum was unable to pass the 5% electoral threshold, as it received only 0.66% of the total votes.
