Six MPs leave ruling Georgian Dream to join ex-PM Gakharia's new party

Six MPs left the ruling Georgian Dream party in order to help create a new party and step up their activities together with former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia. The MPs said that they are all members of Gakharia’s team and the decision to leave was made together with him.

Giorgi Khodzhevanishvili, Mikhail Daushvili, Beka Liluashvili, Anna Buchukuri, Alexander Motserelia, and Shalva Kereselidze left the ranks of the parliamentary majority of the Georgian Dream party.

“We were members of the Georgian Dream, and therefore we shared all the successes and failures of it during this period. At the same time, we feel responsible for the mistakes that were made and, therefore, we make this step guided by the same sense of responsibility”, said Giorgi Khodjevanishvili.

Khodjevanishvili said that today the population is worried about the pandemic, the economic crisis, unemployment and poverty, and not the confrontation and quarrels between the country’s political parties.

The MPs say that in the near future, together with Giorgi Gakharia, they will provide the public with more information.

Parliament Speaker Archil Talakvadze said that Giorgi Gakharia’s team is likely to join the ongoing demand for holding early elections, because “they have practically become an opposition themselves”:

“Let’s see which party they will join and what their position will be. There are too many questions, and they will all be answered. This step is unjustified. It’s just a shame when you move away from common responsibility and talk about the problems for which you yourself are responsible and need to work on trying to solve them”, Talakvadze added.

• IRI polls – Georgian patriarch, ex-PM remain most popular, but respondents feel ‘country going in wrong direction’
• Former Georgian PM returns to politics – ‘third force’ or ‘Ivanishvili’s project’?
• Op-ed: what to make of the resignation of the Georgian PM

Former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia resigned earlier this year, on February 18.

As Gakharia explained, one of the main reasons for his resignation was the court’s decision to arrest the leader of the main opposition party, the United National Movement, Nika Melia. Gakharia said that he considered the arrest of Nika Melia unjustified given the risks of possible political escalation.

Gakharia also said that the reason for him leaving his office was the inability to come to an agreement with the other member of the ‘team’.