European Georgia loses the status of minority in Parliament
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Wednesday, March 6
The European Georgia opposition party has lost the status of minority in Parliament on Monday after two more members left the Georgian Dream ruling party to join the Alliance of Patriots opposition.
The European Georgia, which was created in 2017 by former members of the United National Movement (UNM) and several new figures, will no longer use additional time during debates and other benefits the minority has.
European Georgia has 20 MPs in Parliament. After seven members of the Georgian Dream (GD) have left the party over the past several days it appeared that 21 legislators are out of the majority and minority, more than the number of MPs the European Georgia has, which became the reason for losing the status.
Irma Nadirashvili, from the European Georgia, says that they have no plans, for now, to hold consultations with the United National Movement to “fill the gap” with several of the UNM MPs in order to regain the status.
She claims that two former MPs of the Georgian Dream Gia Zhorzholiani and Mirian Tsiklauri have been tasked to join the Alliance of Patriots as the latter had five MPs since David Tchitchinadze left them and were unable to create a faction.
At least six MPs are mandatory for the creation of a parliamentary faction.
“This was an artificial joining the Alliance of Patriots, which proves that the Alliance is no opposition and it is allied with the ruling party,” Nadirashvili said.
She claims that European Georgia does not need such an “artificial unity” with the National Movement to preserve the status.
“We will now provide all the efforts with our three factions to further deepen the internal conflict in the ruling party in order to make Bidzina Ivanishvili [billionaire, founder of the Georgian Dream party], give up the informal ruling of the country,” Naditashvili said.
Four of the GD members left the party because of the court-related row as stated that the ruling party gave chances to biased judges stay in the system.
One GD lawmaker quit as the party did not support his bill regarding the accumulative pension, and the remaining two to join the Alliance of Patriots.
The GD now has 108 MPs in the 150-member legislative body.
