Lelo Names Tbilisi Majoritarian Candidates

Opposition party Lelo for Georgia named candidates in all ten majoritarian districts of the capital city to run for the seats of Tbilisi City Council (Sakrebulo) in the October 2 local elections.

“As a result of these elections we should immediately remove Georgian Dream [the ruling party] from the single-party rule of the local self-government bodies,” said party leader MP Badri Japaridze in his opening remarks on August 29.

MP Japaridze, Lelo’s candidate for Tbilisi Sakrebulo chairmanship and number one on the party’s proportional list, added that such a change is necessary to bring stability to the country and switch to coalition rule.

Four out of ten majoritarian candidates are women. Earlier, the party also named architect and urbanist Ana Bibilashvili, a female candidate, to run for Mayor’s office in Tbilisi.

Lelo’s majoritarian candidates for Tbilisi Sakrebulo are as follows:

  • Mtatsminda – Saba Buadze
  • Krtsanisi – Tazo Datunashvili
  • Vake – Dea Metreveli
  • Saburtalo – Vato Surguladze
  • Nadzaladevi – Nika Cherkezishvili
  • Isani – Lana Galdava
  • Didube – Dito Abashidze
  • Samgori – Guliko Zumbadze
  • Chugureti – Kakha Jgenti
  • Gldani – Tamar Adamia

The ​June 28 amendments to the election code of Georgia defined 40 out of 50 Tbilisi Sakrebulo members to be elected through the proportional lists, while the remaining 10 seats will be filled by majoritarian candidates, as opposed to the previous allocation of 25 – 25

The upcoming local elections were expected to also decide the fate of early parliamentary elections in 2022, which would take place should the ruling party score under 43% in October as per commitments taken under the EU-brokered deal. Georgian Dream later unilaterally quit the agreement, taking back the referendum promise. Many of the opposition parties, however, including Lelo, continue to observe the 43% threshold as a legitimacy check for the GD rule.

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