11 September 2024
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has presented the 20 top figures on Georgian Dream’s electoral list, with party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili topping the list.
Before presenting the list on Tuesday, Kobakhidze spoke about the past four years, during which he recalled previous parliamentary election results and the opposition’s reaction to it and spoke about how Georgian Dream withdrew from an EU-brokered deal with the opposition. He also stated that the past four years were an ‘example of how our country’s development will look in the coming years’.
‘During the past four years, we have maintained peace, increased Georgia’s economy by ₾40 billion ($15 billion), increased the country’s budget by ₾10 billion ($3.7 billion), helped 350,000 people overcome poverty, created 146,000 jobs and got Georgia candidate status for EU membership’, he said.
In his opening statement, Kobakhidze also repeated Georgian Dream’s claim that after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Georgia was under the ‘heaviest pressure’ to join the war.
‘You all remember the open calls [to open] a second front; you remember the demands to join the sanctions [against Russia] and to send fighting volunteers to Ukraine’, he said, adding that ‘due to the non-fulfilment of these two demands’, Ukraine recalled their ambassador from Georgia.
According to him, Georgia went through a ‘completely unfair and unfounded decision’ when the country was originally denied membership candidate status by the EU in June 2022.
At that time, Moldova and Ukraine received a positive decision, while Georgia received 12 recommendations that they were meant to meet in order to get EU candidate status.
Kobakhidze also recalled the popular opposition to the foreign agent law, labelling it the ‘scam of the century’. He added that the law was ‘fully, brazenly baptised as a Russian law’.
Georgian Dream has intensified its anti-Western rhetoric in recent years, especially this year, when the parliamentary majority adopted the controversial foreign agent law despite weeks of massive protests and calls from Western countries to drop it.
Who are those on the electoral list?
The list presented by Kobakhidzie included two former prime ministers as well as the current one and two Olympic champions. There were seven new faces, and only five women in total.
For the first time in Georgian Dream’s 12-year rule, the founder of the party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, was on the electoral list.
Kobakhidze presented himself as the second candidate on the list, and thanked his ‘teammates and Bidzina Ivanishvili’ for that honour.
Former Prime Minister and current chair of the Georgian Dream party Irakli Gharibashvili was third in the election list. Gharibashvili became Prime Minister for the first time in 2013, when he replaced Bidzina Ivanishvili. He held this position until December 2015. He then became Prime Minister for a second term in February 2021, after Giorgi Gakharia resigned; but resigned in January 2024 shortly before he was appointed the party’s chair.
Shalva Papuashvili, who has been the Speaker of Parliament since 2021, was fourth in the list.
Kobakhidze nominated Mamuka Mdinaradze as the fifth candidate. Mdinaradze became the leader of the parliamentary majority in February 2024.
Tea Tsulukiani, the Minister of Culture and Sports since 2021, was the sixth candidate on the election list. Mdinaradze said after the list had been presented that ‘together, [Tsulukiani] and the team decided that she will move to the parliamentary body’.
‘At the very least, she will be a strong opponent for the National Movement’, Mdinaradze claimed.
The party frequently uses the term ‘collective National Movement’ or ‘National Movement’ to conflate the formerly ruling United National Movement party and other pro-Western opposition parties in the country.
The seventh placement on the electoral list went to three-time Olympic weightlifting champion Lasha Talakhadze.
One of the new faces, and eighth on the list, was Vakhtang Turnava, the founder of the coding company Skillwill, a company that in the past participated in a joint project with USAID.
According to BM.ge, Turnava also owns Interport Georgia Ltd., ‘which operates in the direction of road, sea and air transportation’, though his main focus is information technology.
Maka Bochorishvili, the Chair of the Georgian Parliament’s EU Integration Committee since December 2020, was ninth on the list.
The tenth candidate was wrestler Geno Petriashvili, who won a silver medal at the 2021 Olympics and a gold medal at the 2024 Olympics.
Sozar Subari, a member of the parliamentary majority in the ruling Georgian Dream satellite party, People’s Power, was the eleventh candidate nominated. Back in July, Mdinaradze announced that People’s Power would participate in the parliamentary elections as a part of the Georgian Dream electoral list.
As in the 2020 parliamentary elections, this year’s party list included Mariam Kvrivishvili, currently the Deputy Minister of Economy. She came in at number 12 on the list.
The thirteenth party member listed was Anri Okhanashvili, who has been the chair of the Legal Affairs Committee of the Parliament since 2019.
Next up at number 14 was Nikoloz Samkharadze, who has been the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee of Parliament since 2020.
Another new face and the fifteenth member of the list was Eka Chichinadze, who was presented by Kobakhidze as the vice-president of the International Association of Female Artists. According to RFE/RL, Chichinadze has also been connected with the company Pero Metal. They also cited tabloid media as reporting that Chichinadze was closely linked to Ivanishvili’s family.
Another new candidate, coming in at number 16 on the list, was businessperson Shota Berekashvili, a dual citizen of Russia and Georgia. Media has reported that Berekashvili owns the development company BK Construction together with another shareholder, and also owns shares in several other companies.
Levan Makhashvili is the seventeenth candidate on the list. According to Kobakhidze, Makhashvili has a PhD in European Studies and is the head of the Cabinet of the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia.
Kobakhidze announced Mikheil Kavelashvili, another member of People’s Power, as the eighteenth member of the list.
Among the new faces was lawyer Giorgi Gabunia, who, according to Kobakhidze’s description, was previously the executive director of the state and academic ensembles of Georgian song and dance, Rustavi and Martve. He is also a soloist of the Basiani ensemble, a member of the patriarchal choir of the Holy Trinity Cathedral, and the deputy director of the State Folklore Center.
The last member of the ruling party’s electoral list was psychologist Lika Shartava. In his announcement of her name, Kobakhidze emphasised her connections with the former chair of the Council of Ministers of Abkhazia, Zhiuli Shartava.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled for 26 October in Georgia.
