Political Configuration Shaped Ahead of Polls

Major opposition parties will run separately in the upcoming local elections after failing to agree on the nomination of a single mayoral candidate in the capital city Tbilisi, further increasing the chances of a victory for the ruling National Movement in the October 5 polls.

Georgia’s Way, the Industrialists, Labor Party, New Rights and an election bloc of Conservative and Republican parties will be competing with each other and with the ruling party in the elections.

Freedom Party, National-Democratic Party, Justice Party and the Greens have announced a boycott of the elections.

Some political analysts say that although there are a total of eight parties running in the local elections, a tight race is not expected.

So far there are only three people have been officially nominated for Tbilisi mayor: Gogi Topadze of the Industrialists Party; Salome Zourabichvili, the leader of Georgia’s Way, and incumbent Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava, who has been nominated by the ruling party.

A coalition of the Conservative and Republican parties are currently mulling over two possible candidates: MP Koba Davitashvili, the leader of Conservative Party and Tina Khidasheli of the Republican Party.

“We still have time so we will agree on a single candidate… We are also waiting for proposals from other opposition parties to join our coalition, which can be done before September 7,” Davit Usupashvili, Republican leader, told Civil Georgia on September 1.

The New Rights have not yet chosen a candidate, and are reportedly still trying to convince influential media and financial tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili to run in the Tbilisi mayoral race.

Although the Labor Party decided to run in the local elections, it has refused to nominate a candidate for the Tbilisi mayoral race, citing that a Mayor is not directly elected.

According to the law, the Tbilisi Mayor is elected by the Tbilisi City Council – the Sakrebulo – where 25 members will be elected through a first-past-the-post, “winner takes all” majoritarian system in Tbilisi’s ten constituencies, while the remaining 12 seats will be distributed, through a so called “compensatory list,” from among those parties that garner at least 4% of votes in all ten constituencies of the capital city.

In the majoritarian system, a party must garner at least 1/3 of the total ballots cast in a particular constituency to endorse candidates in that Sakrebulo. Five out of ten elections districts in Tbilisi will be three-mandate constituencies, while the other five will be two-mandate constituencies. The 37-member City Council will then elect the Tbilisi Mayor from among its members. The candidate will have to win at least 2/3 of the total votes in the council.

Political analyst Ghia Nodia of the think-tank Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD) said in an interview with RFE/RL Georgian service on August 31 that the opposition has little chance of success in the elections, especially in Tbilisi.

“I do not think these elections will turn into a field of major political competition, because I think that the opposition has no serious chances of success, so unfortunately there will be no major competition,” Ghia Nodia said.

He also said that most of the opposition leaders are too focused on the election race in Tbilisi, which is a mistake.

“I think it would have been better for the opposition to pay more attention to particular regions, where they could have more chances of success, rather than focusing only on Tbilisi’s constituencies,” Nodia said.