Two opposition parties present joint Tbilisi Mayoral candidate
By Tea Mariamidze
Tuesday, August 22
Democratic Georgia and Free Georgia, two non-parliamentary opposition parties, presented their joint candidate for Tbilisi Mayor’s elections, Kakha Kukava.
Moreover, the parties presented Dimitri Lortkipanidzeas the candidate for the position of the Head of Tbilisi City Council.
Nino Burjanadze, the leader of the Democratic Georgia party, stated that despite the fact that the Democratic Movement had a very worthy candidate for Tbilisi Mayor, the two parties agreed to name Kakha Kukava to the position in order to reach “oppositional unity”.
At the presentation, Burjanadze stressed that the local elections have tremendous importance for Georgia in order to end the informal governance in the country, referring to Bidzina Ivanishvili, the former Prime Minister and founder of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party.
“I hope this time that society will make the right choice in favor of political parties that have put aside their political interests for oppositional unity,” she stated.
Burjanadze added that only united opposition forces can beat the government and win the elections.
“The door of our oppositional unity is open for the other parties as well, except for the ruling GD faction and the United National Movement party,” Burjanadze stressed.
In his speech, Kukava called on voters to make a choice between a real political force and the current “ugly regime”.
“All the other political parties have the same ideology. They are the same liberal parties that portray all our national values as old-fashioned…our team offers the voters a new, national force with a program that serves national interests,” said Kukava.
At present there are seven Tbilisi Mayoral candidates:
1. Georgian Dream – Kakha Kaladze
2. United National Movement –Zaal Udumashvili
3. European Georgia – Elene Khoshtaria
4. The Development Movement-Tengiz Shergilashvili
5. Alliance of Patriots of Georgia – Irma Inashvili
6. Independent candidate – Alexander Elisashvili
7. Democratic Georgia and Free Georgia – Kakha Kukava
The local elections are to be held in late October this year.
