Ex-Parliament Speaker launches Movement for Building
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Monday, June 19
On Friday, Georgia’s Former Parliament Speaker David Usupashvili held a presentation of a new, centrist party, the Movement for Building, with whom he intends to win the 2020 parliamentary elections.
The slogan of the new movement, which is composed of specialists from different fields, public servants, politicians and businesspersons, is "we care about what is good, change what is bad and create what we lack”.
Usupashvili claims the party will be focused on attracting high-level specialists and young people to politics, and will encourage unity, dialogue and healthy debates rather than confrontations and hatred.
The new movement intends to name its candidates for the upcoming local elections, scheduled for the autumn, at the beginning of July.
The former Parliament Speaker stated they would complete the formation of the movement in the spring of 2018 and prepare for the 2020 Parliamentary elections.
Usupashvili also stressed that the aim of the new movement is to build a country that would be "based on its centuries-long history and experience, which would have strong democratic institutions as its walls and would be roofed with Euro-Atlantic cooperation and security structures”.
Of Georgia's famous politicians, the movement includes Vakhtang Khmaladze and Kakha Shartava.
Analyst Soso Tsiskarishvili believes that Georgian politics require Usupashvili’s extensive knowledge and experience.
Meanwhile, some analysts express sceptisicm. The Georgian people “have already tested Usupashvili and they weren’t impressed with him,” said analyist Gia Khukhashvili.
Usupashvili quit the opposition Republican Party he had belonged to for the past 25 years in October last year, shortly after the Parliamentary elections, in which the party failed to overcome the 5% threshold to take any seat in the legislative body.
Usupashvili chaired the eighth Parliament of Georgia for four years from 2012.
The Republicans were members of the Georgian Dream coalition for the 2012 Parliamentary race, in which the coalition defeated the nine-year rule of the United National Movement.
In last year’s elections, the coalition split, and the Republicans ran independently.
Usupashvili served as chairperson of the Republican Party from 2005-2013. In 2016 Parliamentary Elections, he was number one on the party list.
As he stated, he left the party due to an internal controversy over the party’s future with other Republican leaders.
