Opposition Regroups

The 2012 parliamentary elections will be extremely important for Georgia. They will show whether the ruling National Movement will manage to keep a constitutional majority or whether the opposition will manage to defeat the Rose Revolution administration either by diminishing its influence or removing it completely.

Various ratings and polls have been carried out by different organizations giving their prognoses of the forthcoming parliamentary elections. The NDI surveys for instance show that the National Movement is leading though many opposition entities challenge these results.

The situation of course has changed considerably since billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili decided to get involved in Georgian political life. Without this another National Movement victory was guaranteed. With Ivanishvili in the political arena the situation became more compatible. As Ivanishvili stated initially, he not only wants to participate in political life but is ready to cooperate with certain political parties as well. So far, along with the National Movement he has criticized some opposition forces calling them 'pseudo-opposition' parties. This label has created a backlash from those opposition entities.

Among the so-called pseudo-opposition parties Ivanishvili named the Christian-Democratic Movement, the Labour Party, the New Rights, the Democratic Party, the European Democrats and the Georgian Party. However he made overtures to the former ombudsman from the Georgian party, Sozar Subari, and expressed his willingness to cooperate with him personally. As for the entities with whom he is ready to cooperate he mentioned the Free Democrats and its leader Irakli Alasania and the Republican Party. Also he is ready for certain ties with the National Forum.

Of course such a division of the different political forces created dissatisfaction among the opposition spectrum and they started criticizing Ivanishvili in turn. Ivanishvili’s appearance in the political arena then has shaken up the existing situation and it needs at least several weeks before the situation calms down and takes some sort of shape. One thing is for sure: the battle for the leadership of Georgia will be fierce and as the last ten days have shown the ruling authorities will be merciless in their attempt to maintain power.