Girchi and Citizens hold consultations

By Natalia Kochiashvili

Friday, January 15

“We have not changed the conditions for entering the Parliament, our task is to find out what prevents the agreement for 60 oppositionists to enter the parliament” Khvichia announced.

“All parties want to enter the parliament, now they are looking for how to get out of the captivity of their words and rhetoric,” Elisashvili said.

Citizens and Girchi political parties held a meeting for the first time on 14th of January to discuss the current political issues of entering the Parliament and the elections.

Iago Khvichia, Chairman of Girchi, says their task is to find out what is hindering the agreement between the politicians to allow all 60 opposition lawmakers to enter parliament and continue their activities there. Khvichia says he wants to talk to both opposition parties and the Georgian Dream.

As for Girchi's offer - the party has stated from the outset that their goal is proportional elections with a natural threshold. According to Khvichia, the reform of the CEC administration is also important for Girchi. He proposes to use the autumn 2021 self-government elections as a plebiscite:

“We want proportional elections with a natural threshold and we think to use the local elections as a kind of plebiscite demanded by the opposition regarding the date of the new elections. If the opposition wins, new elections will be called, if it fails to win, then we will stop worrying about early elections, because it will turn out that this was not the case at all,” Khvichia said.

As reported after the meeting, 2 parties have very close positions on resolving the crisis and have agreed on a joint action plan. “We agreed to go, we and the leaders of Girchi will talk to the other opposition parties, all those who have crossed the threshold and in the coming days we will have a meeting with Giorgi Vashadze, when he returns from abroad, then with Lelo, then with others,” Elisashvili, leader of Citizens announced. He does not rule out a meeting with the National Movement.

"The only thing is that we do not understand the point of talking to Bokeria, or what we should talk about, neither he nor Gigi Ugulava have a mandate, we know the position of other members of their party that they want to stir the water.” he said, adding that they will meet the Georgian Dream only in the presence of ambassadors.

The opposition, which is in a boycott mode due to the falsification of the results of the parliamentary elections, appealed to the parliament to terminate the powers of the deputy. The exceptions were the party Citizens with 2 seats and Girchi with 3 seats. Citizens say they are ready to enter parliament if radical electoral changes take place through negotiations with the ruling party.

The 4 deputies from the list of the Patriot Alliance entered the parliament, who left the party and formed a new party European Socialists.

The 5th round of talks between the opposition and the government, with the participation of facilitating ambassadors, is expected to take place by the end of this month. The main demands of the opposition are early elections, release of political prisoners and reform of the election administration.