Georgia's main opposition party ends boycott, returns to Parliament

United National Movement ends parliamentary boycott

Georgia‘s largest opposition party, the United National Movement, founded by the jailed former President Mikheil Saakashvili, is ending the boycott and returning to Parliament, Khatia Dekanoidze, one of the party leaders of has announced at a briefing.

According to Dekanoidze, the UNM will participate in the work of the spring session because “the country is currently facing the most difficult challenge”:

“Former President Mikheil Saakashvili is kept prisoner by the current regime. We believe, and the international community has established, that his imprisonment is the political persecution carried out by the regime and (the oligarch and leader of the ruling party) Bidzina Ivanishvili. One of the main axes of our parliamentary activity will be a public exposure of the regime [and] how the regime treats Mikheil Saakashvili using repressive institutions, and that is why we are going to set up a commission of inquiry”, said Khatia Dekanoidze.

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After the 2020 parliamentary elections, the United National Movement, along with other opposition parties, refused to enter parliament and demanded their mandates to be revoked. The opposition claimed that the ruling Georgian Dream party had rigged the elections.

The political crisis in the country lasted 7 months, it ended with the signing of a document mediated by the President of the European Council Charles Michel, according to which, if the ruling party failed to obtain 43% of the vote in the elections to self-government bodies, early elections were to be held. After that, the opposition entered the parliament, the Georgian Dream crossed the threshold and won 46.68% of the vote in the local self-government elections.

However, a month after it entered parliament, the largest opposition party once again announced a boycott amid the July 5 events in Tbilisi when homophobic groups protesting against the holding of the LGBTQ+ March of Dignity attacked journalists and citizens. As a result of the attack, more than 50 people were injured, and Lekso Lashkarava, cameraman of the Pirveli TV company, who had beaten by the attackers, died a few days later.