New Georgian parliament holds 1st session with only ruling party in attendance

On December 11, the newly elected parliament of Georgia of the tenth convocation held its first session.

Only the MPs of the ruling Georgian Dream party attended the first meeting. The opposition is boycotting the parliament and has refused to take up its mandates, claiming the parliamentary elections on October 31 were rigged.

Georgian Dream party MPs entered the parliament to the chant of ‘slaves, slaves!’ by onlooking protestors.

Civil activists at the entrance organized a ‘corridor of shame’ for the MPs.

One activist came to the protest in a zebra costume. He said that his costume personifies the MPs of the ruling party – the leader of the Georgian Dream, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili is famous for his extravagant hobbies, including a private zoo with exotic animals.

“If these slaves entered (parliament), what is the fault of the zebra? Zebra also wants to be a MP, why is he worse than others?” the activist said.

The protesters also brought a funeral wreath as a sign that they were seeing off the MPs of the Georgian Dream “on their last journey”.

Police have been mobilized in the area of ​​the parliament building.

At the same time, representatives of opposition parties gathered to sign a memorandum to give up their parliamentary mandates.

Today the parliament will elect a chairman and other leaders to parliamentary positions.

Also at today’s meeting, the current government will resign. Parliament must declare its confidence in the new government within two weeks.

The Georgian Dream party, which has 90 MPs of 150 in the tenth convocation of parliament, announced ahead of the elections that Giorgi Gakharia, the current prime minister, would be the candidate for prime minister.