Two major opposition groups fail to unite ahead of Georgian elections 

Five weeks before Georgia’s parliamentary elections, the For Georgia party, led by former Georgian Dream member and ex-Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, announced that negotiations to join the Strong Georgia alliance had failed.

On 19 September, the opposition For Georgia party reported that the three-day long negotiations to create a unified bloc with the Strong Georgia alliance had faltered. 

The announcement followed what appeared to be difficult negotiations between For Georgia’s chair, Giorgi Gakharia, and one of the leaders of the alliance and chair of the Lelo party, Mamuka Khazaradze.

Gakharia, a former prime minister under the incumbent Georgian Dream party, and his longtime critic Khazaradze, announced that they would meet after President Salome Zourabichvili, in a surprise move on 16 September, called on them to unite forces and invited both to meet at Orbeliani Palace the following day. Zourabichvili cited the need for a ‘clearer’ choice for undecided opposition voters, something she insisted would be achieved via the merger, which would lead to a ‘positive, third centre’ for voters. 

Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, the two leaders met several times, stating each day that more time was needed to make a final decision.

Soon after the announcement, Khazaradze claimed Gakharia’s statement had come as a surprise to them, as the deal was almost done.

However, throughout the negotiations, it was Khazaradze who appeared to be the one urging for more time to consider the merger. Following their joint meeting on Tuesday night, Gakharia reiterated his support for the merger, while both Khazaradze and his allies within Strong Georgia repeatedly expressed reservations about the proposal.

Khazaradze’s allies in the Strong Georgia alliance include the Citizens party, led by Aleko Elisashvili, Anna Dolidze’s For the People party, and the Freedom Square group, which was formed earlier this year by Levan Tsutskiridze. 

The most frequently raised concern has been whether the merger would actually attract more voters or risk alienating and discouraging their support even more.

Khazaradze, co-founder of the TBC Bank Group, and his business partner Badri Japaridze first announced their plans to move into politics in July 2019, several months after Georgian authorities launched a probe into an old money laundering case against them. Both were formally charged two weeks after their announcement. 

In March that year, Khazaradze accused Gakharia, who then served as Interior Ministry, of sending a threatening letter in 2018, demanding he pressure TV channels Pirveli and Artarea to favourably cover Salome Zourabichvili’s presidential campaign. 

Gakharia has consistently denied the allegation, while Khazaradze claimed that his fallout with the government, which included Gakharia at the time, stemmed from the desire of billionaire Georgian Dream founder and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili to block Khazaradze’s consortium from securing investments for the Anaklia Deep Sea Port project on Georgia’s Black Sea coast. Khazaradze alleged this was part of Ivanishvili’s plan to turn Georgia away from a Westward path. 

Khazaradze has since maintained a strong degree of criticism towards Gakharia, even after Gakharia resigned as prime minister in early 2021 and subsequently formed his own opposition party.

Following the merger attempt, the ruling Georgian Dream party claimed that Zourabichvili was not acting independently but was following instructions from unspecified external forces.