Georgian Dream vows to ban opposition parties

• 5 min read

▲Georgian Dream’s parliamentary leader Mamuka Mdinaradze. Screengrab from video.

Rely on OC Media? We rely on you too.

Amidst the current global turmoil, small news outlets like ours could be the first to close. Help us get off grants and become the first reader-funded news site in the Caucasus, and keep telling the stories that matter.

Become a member

The ruling Georgian Dream party plans to petition the Constitutional Court to declare opposition parties unconstitutional, based on the forthcoming conclusions of the parliamentary temporary commission investigating alleged crimes committed by the previous government.

On Thursday, Georgian Dream’s parliamentary leader Mamuka Mdinaradze said the final conclusion of the commission will give Georgian Dream a ‘solid legal basis’ to appeal to the Constitutional Court and demand that both the United National Movement (UNM) and other opposition parties be declared unconstitutional, and therefore banned from participating in elections.

According to Mdinaradze, the question has often been raised whether the UNM and ‘its satellites’ will participate in the municipal elections planned to be held on 4 October.

‘[Foreign] agent forces will always act as their funding bosses instruct them to’, he said. ‘Under their instructions, they still say that they will not participate in the local elections. In fact, they will not only not participate, they will not be able to participate in the elections to local government bodies! This is ensured by the Georgian state and its constitutional system’.

‘It is clear that the conclusion of the investigative commission will be a solid legal basis for declaring these parties unconstitutional, and we are confident that the Constitutional Court will also make an objective decision’, Mdinaradze added, noting that the ‘collective UNM’ will no longer be able to participate not only in the self-government elections, but also in any elections held in this country.

‘As anti-Georgian, anti-constitutional, anti-national and criminal parties, they will be declared unconstitutional parties and banned from operating!’.

The ruling party has been using the term ‘collective National Movement’ to refer to an undefined list of pro-Western liberal rival groups, applying it to all groups that either spun off from the UNM, are led by former UNM officials, or who the ruling party allege have cooperated with their primary rivals in some way.

At the briefing on Thursday, Mdinaradze also said that the commission’s mandate, named the ‘Interim Fact-Finding Commission on the Activities of the Regime and the Officials of the Political Regime of 2003–2012’, is expanding.

‘They are constantly engaged in attempts to overthrow or violently change the constitutional order of Georgia and to oppose the constitutional order of Georgia in other ways. In short, after 2012, they have committed numerous anti-state actions that require appropriate legal assessment and response’, he claimed.

The commission to investigate the UNM’s time in power was established in February, and followed repeated pledges by Georgian Dream to punish the UNM — the ruling party has particularly focused on accusing the UNM of provoking and starting the August 2008 War.

The UNM, which ran in the October 2024 elections under the Unity — National Movement group alongside the Strategy Aghmashenebeli party, was in power between 2003–2012, and is most associated with former President Mikheil Saakashvili.

On Thursday, Mdinaradze also stated that parliamentary majority initiated a draft law that would declare the ‘successor parties’ unconstitutional if the essence of the party’s activities, the personal composition of the decision-makers, or the statutory goals are identical to the essence of the activities, the personal composition, or the statutory goals of the ‘collective UNM’.

Commenting on Mdinaradze’s statements, the political secretary of the UNM, Giorgi Baramidze, stated that the UNM ‘is an idea, not a document, therefore, no matter how much you beat around the bush, you cannot destroy this party, just as you cannot destroy the Georgian people and the idea that is supreme for our people, which is called freedom, a strong, united, democratic, European state’.

What’s going on in the parliament?

The Georgian parliament effectively does not have any opposition representation except for Giorgi Gakharia’s For Georgia party’s 12 MPs, who are boycotting all sessions. Gakharia is a former prime minister who previously served under Georgian Dream.

In the beginning of February, the parliamentary majority expelled 49 opposition MPs — who were also boycotting all sessions — from parliament. The expelled MPs belonged to the Unity — National Movement, Strong Georgia, and Coalition for Change groups.

The current political crisis comes on the heels of October’s parliamentary elections, which according to official results, gave Georgian Dream a large majority, with 54% of the vote.

In 2022, several members of Georgian Dream announced their departure from the ruling party citing the need for a more ‘open discussion’ about Georgia’s Western partners. The new group was named People’s Power, and was largely viewed as a satellite group of Georgian Dream.

People’s Power has continued to support Georgian Dream and glorify its billionaire founder and honorary chair Bidzina Ivanishvili — its MPs also ran on the same electoral list as Georgian Dream in the 2024 elections.

On 5 February, with the absence of any opposition MPs in parliament, three members of Georgian Dream, including Ilia Injia, Varlam Liparteliani, and Nika Elisashveli, resigned from the ruling party to create a ‘healthy opposition’ faction within parliament. The faction has nonetheless remained aligned with the ruling party.