25 Candidates to Run for President
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, September 25
The Georgian Central Election Commission (CEC) has ended the registration process for October 28 presidential elections and stated that 25 candidates have received the right to run for the presidency as all their official documentation and list of supporters were valid.
CEC said that in total 46 candidates applied them for registration. However, 25 of them failed to present either valid documentation of the list of more than 25,000 supporters.
“Twenty-five candidates are running for the presidency. 19 of them were nominated by political parties and 6 – by initiative groups,” CEC reported.
It will be the last presidential elections in Georgia when the president is elected by people.
All following presidents will be elected by delegates from Tbilisi and regions as based on the current constitution Georgia has become a parliamentary republic, with the prime minister and parliament sharing top functions and responsibilities.
The main function of the president is to arbiter between the government and parliament and to present the country abroad.
The Georgian Dream ruling party will not have its own presidential candidate this year and they will support an independent candidate, former Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili in the role.
10 opposition parties, the United National Movement among them, have nominated former FM Grigol Vashadze as their presidential candidate.
The European Georgia opposition has raised ex-Parliament Speaker David Bakradze for the role.
As in all previous elections, a leader of the Labour Party, Shalva Natelashvili is running the race.
Most of the candidates are more or less known to the public.
