Republicans offer two ways to the coalition
By Messenger Staff
Thursday, October 30
Georgia’s Republican Party, which is a member of the Georgian Dream coalition, has reviewed the achievements of the past two years and pushed forward its strategy concerning the upcoming parliamentary elections in 2016.
The statement of the party focused on the five goals they hoped to achieve in the two years before the 2016 parliamentary elections. The goals are as such: 1. strengthening the institutional foundations of multi-party democracy. According to them this required the steadfast defence of political rights and freedoms inside the country as well as signing the Association Agreement with EU.
2. Faster development of democratic institutions, which required the improvement of a constitutional system of checks and balances among different branches of the government
3. The formation of a competitive and fast-growing national economic system. It meant a reduction of the state’s economic activities along with the end of state pressure on business and an end to the practice of state control of business, and bringing about new possibilities for the population through the EU Free Trade Agreement and Visa Liberalization process.
4. The foundation of effective state governance, which required the development of a staffing policy based on professionalism and qualifications and the elimination of political or other forms of discrimination; preventing the domination of central and national government and local self-government bodies by the Special Forces and party structures.
5. Ensuring the security of the country, which required intensification of the NATO integration process; stronger efforts to implement, in a complete and timely manner, the measures envisaged in the NATO cooperation package.
The party claims that in order to achieve and consolidate this, there are two possible ways to improve efficacy and to better structure the coalition.
“Either it can make the currently assembled coalition – which was created with the aim of unseating the previous authorities - into a European-style coalition, or alternatively to make it the kind of coalition in which the component parities are guaranteed the freedom to position themselves according to their own ideologies and to make clear their differing positions within the framework of agreements reached within the coalition,” the party's statement said.
Majority MP Vakhtang Khmaladze admits that the statement hints on some problems and differences within the coalition. He states that the being of the Republican Party within the current coalition will be dependent on future developments.
However, fellow MP of the coalition Gia Volksi ensures that there is no controversy among the coalition member parties on principled and vitally important issues.
