Georgia’s ruling party has nominated incumbent Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze as its candidate in the October 2025 municipal elections. His nomination kicked off Georgian Dream’s campaign, which again emphasised ‘peace’ — something it repeatedly claimed to protect from threats posed by the opposition and ‘external powers’.
Kaladze has held the position since 2017, and will run again in an election already boycotted by several major opposition parties.
On Thursday, the ceremony presenting him as a candidate was attended by Georgian Dream leaders, ministers, and MPs, alongside public personalities supportive of the current government. Among those present were the party’s founder and honorary chair, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, as well as Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze.
At Kaladze’s nomination, Kobakhidze said that Georgian Dream could have chosen ‘just a good politician, a good manager, or a good patriot’ as its candidate for Tbilisi mayor; but instead, they were presenting ‘a champion’, apparently alluding to Kaladze’s past football career.
After listing various infrastructure and social projects that he said were implemented under Kaladze, Kobakhidze said that Kaladze was a mayor that ‘any European city would wish for’.
In his own speech, Kaladze presented his campaign slogan: ‘Peace for Georgia, more good for Tbilisi’. He described the country as ‘a kind of island of peace in the modern world’, which, he claimed, gives it a unique opportunity for development.
With this message, Kaladze once again echoed the ruling party’s narrative, which Georgian Dream intensified after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and later made a central theme in its 2024 parliamentary election campaign. During that time, the ruling party repeatedly sought to convince the public that it alone is the guarantor of peace, pushing the claim that shadowy actors, with the help of local government-critics, were trying to drag the country into war.
‘The fact that we have peace in the country today is thanks to the policies implemented by Georgian Dream’, Kaladze added.
According to him, ‘Tbilisi and each of its districts are now much more full of life’ than they were eight years ago, when he first became mayor. Alongside material improvements, he also promised the people of Tbilisi ‘non-material benefits’: specifically, a pledge to ‘defeat hatred’.
Kaladze, in addition to serving as Tbilisi’s mayor, is also the general secretary of Georgian Dream. Like other party figures, he is known for his confrontational rhetoric toward opponents, including international critics. Most recently, in response to EU Ambassador Paweł Herczyński’s criticism toward the ruling party policies, Kaladze stated that if it were up to him, he would expel the ambassador from the country.
Amidst the Georgian government’s recent EU U-turn, several European countries — including Lithuania, Estonia, and Ukraine — have sanctioned Kaladze.
Kaladze’s competitor not yet named
It’s still unclear who will challenge Kaladze from the opposition.
Irakli Kupradze, secretary general of the opposition party Lelo, which has confirmed its participation in the municipal elections, said on the day of Kaladze’s nomination that ‘a pro-European Tbilisi should not have a pro-Russian mayor’.
Kupradze accused Kaladze and his team of ‘squandering’ the capital’s budget.
‘Kakha Kaladze’s legacy is one of total corruption, the disregard for citizens’ interests, the destruction of the city by pro–Georgian Dream developers, and their excessive, enormous enrichment’, he added.
Eight other opposition parties, however, have announced a boycott of the municipal elections. The list included parties from two largest opposition groups — Coalition for Change and Unity – United National Movement (UNM). For them, taking part in the elections would undermine the policy of refusing to recognise Georgian Dream’s legitimacy following the disputed 2024 parliamentary elections, which were marred by major violations.
Parties in favour of participating in the elections have argued that opposition involvement in the process will strengthen the anti-government momentum and prevent Georgian Dream from gaining full control over all state institutions.
Only two major opposition parties — Lelo and For Georgia — have announced plans to take part in the elections so far. Two smaller parties — Freedom Square and For the People — which joined Lelo in a pre-2024 election coalition under the name Strong Georgia, have announced that they will not take part in the municipal vote.
In mid-July, Lelo and For Georgia signed a deal to support neutral candidates from civil society in mayoral races and for majoritarian council seats. If finding such candidates proves impossible, they will pool their resources and present joint party candidates to the electorate.
Pro-government TV channels previously reported that the joint candidate of the two parties in Tbilisi would be Aleko Elisashvili, a member of Lelo’s coalition. Elisashvili, who ran for Tbilisi mayor in 2017 and came in second after Kaladze, dismissed the report on Wednesday as ‘a very big lie’.
The mayor of Tbilisi is elected for a four-year term. The position has been an elected one since 2006.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
