MP Bidzina Gegidze dismissed from ruling party
By Tea Mariamidze
Tuesday, Septembe 3
Georgian Dream (GD) ruling party MP, Bidzina Gegidze was dismissed from the majority.
The decision was made at the GD meeting late on Sunday. As Gia Volsky, a member of the ruling party told the media, there had accumulated issues on which the majority and Gegidze had "radically different positions.”
“It looks like Bidzina Gegidze was aspiring to be excluded from the party… There is nothing tragic about it. One may have another political platform shaped by his views,” he said.
Volsky added there were signs of political speculation, but he assures it was not the aspiration of the majority to dismiss Gegidze.
Bidzina Gegidze led the ruling party faction Georgian Dream - For Strong Georgia. He was also the member of the political council, however, he keeps his place there so far.
The MP said he learnt about the decision of the GD from media and no one contacted him to inform about his expulsion.
He believes the ruling party should make an official statement about the decision and inform the MP as well.
“Was this decision expected or not, there is nothing extraordinary about it…I have not even seen news about this. I was not attending that GD meeting, consequently, I do not know what was discussed there,” he told the journalists.
Several days ago Gegidze criticized the majority, saying GD deviated from its four-point plan, which is about justice and freedom.
He told Kviris Palitra newspaper that there are a lot of negative developments in the country and if things did not change, the society would lose trust towards authorities.
Moreover, according to the MP, in 2012, GD leaders said the law should rule the country, but now they all forgot about it. He added that if there is no trust in the government, the 2020 parliamentary elections will be useless.
To note, anti-corruption agency of the State Security Service (SSS) summoned Gegidze for questioning regarding his previous job in the Georgian Post Company, where he was a deputy director in 2014-2016.
The process of questioning lasted for 7 hours and the main subject was selling property owned by the Georgian Post via auction. In particular, it referred to the optimization of the infrastructure of the company and relevant processes.
Gegidze believes that the questioning is politically-motivated, naming his different views as the main reason from launching the investigation.
