4 former Alliance of Patriots members enter parliament of 10th convocation
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Wednesday, January 6
On 5th of January, the Committee on Procedural Issues and Rules recognized the parliamentary powers of Gela Mikadze, Fridon Injia and Davit Zilfimiani who will be so far the only deputies representing opposition in the parliament. These gentlemen also happen to be the sponsors of the party and as other members of the Alliance argue, ‘political part’ of the party remains in the boycott regime, whilst the ‘business part’ enters parliament. The committee voted on the issue after the leaders of the Patriots Alliance, Irma Inashvili, Giorgi Lomia and Gocha Tevdoradze, resigned from their seats. As for the fourth mandate won by the party, Avtandil Enukidze said he was not going to relinquish his parliamentary mandate and plans to enter parliament.
Note that the Alliance of Patriots won 4 seats in the parliamentary elections. Deputies representing the 5 parties have already appealed to the parliament to revoke the mandate of the deputy. These are: "Labor Party", "Lelo", "Strategy Builder", "UNM - Power is in Unity" and "European Georgia". The five parties also canceled the list of possible replacements. 3 Girchi MPs and 2 Citizens' MPs have not applied to the parliament to cancel their mandates so far. The exception is Zura Japaridze, who was elected to the parliament by the Girchi list. He appealed to the parliament individually to cancel the mandate and then left the party for another reason.
"As soon as we enter the parliament, we will leave the Alliance of Patriots, as the representatives of the political union" European Socialists "in the Georgian parliament, will start working in the parliament," Injia said. Adding that xext Saturday MPs will hold a congress of the political union European Socialists and present their political team, which will aim to preserve national traditions, identity and European values, strengthen the Georgian economy and improve the well-being of our citizens.
As he noted, it is obvious that staying on the streets of the opposition today helps 2 political forces - the Georgian Dream and the National Movement. Injia believes that the UNM wants to develop a revolutionary scenario in the country, while the Georgian Dream hopes to destroy the opposition left in the streets.
According to him, along with harsh criticism, all political forces should be united around common national goals, which are reflected in the Constitution of Georgia. He also underscored that no people could not be found in Georgia that would admit that they were forced to vote for a certain candidate, ‘which is evidence to conclude that everyone did it of their own free will.’
Enukidze, novel opposition MP explained that their decision to enter parliament was known to the party and there was no conflict. At the same time, Enukidze responded to the draft law on party financing and noted that the termination of funding is wrong.
The leader of the Georgian Dream, Irakli Kobakhidze, says that the opposition party has already entered parliament. According to him, it is important that the Russian member of the Patriots Alliance did not enter the parliament and the parliament of the 10th convocation will be one in which there will be no openly pro-Russian party.
On the other hand, opposition doesn’t consider this change to be significant for the political crisis, they argue the country is in. "I do not think that the entry of corrupt officials from the time of Eduard Shevardnadze into the parliament will be a big victory for the Georgian Dream," commented Sergo Chikhladze, a member of the Strategy Builder Committee.
