Republican’s initiative triggers speculation

The Republican Party, which is one of the leading parties within the Georgian Dream coalition, released a statement on October 28 in which it appealed to the Georgian Dream to transform itself into a new European style coalition. The party claims that in order to achieve and consolidate this, there are two possible ways to improve efficiency and to better structure the coalition.

“Either it can transform 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 stands within the framework of agreements reached by the coalition,” the party's statement said.

The Republican Party has nine MPs, who are among the parliamentary majority; members of the party established by former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili entitled as Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia remains dominant in the majority. The party is currently chaired by Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili. Parliament Speaker Davit Usupashvili belongs to the faction of the Georgian Dream-Republicans. He led the Republican Party for 8 years until he was replaced by Khatuna Samnidze in 2013.

In a recent statement, the party stressed that the Georgian Dream coalition successfully completed its two-year governance, removed the authoritarian regime of Mikheil Saakashvili, won the 2013 presidential and 2014 local elections, and signed a crucial Association Agreement with the EU.

However, the party pushed forward those 5 key issues the government should address before the 2016 parliamentary elections.

The five topics include strengthening the institutional foundations of multi-party democracy, faster development of democratic institutions, the formation of a competitive and fast-growing national economic system, the creation of effective state governance, and ensuring the security of the country.

The party claims that the fact that most of the problems were inherited from the UNM administration would no longer be a justification for the coalition.

The initiative was responded to by the coalition members. MP Zakaria Kutsnashvili stated that if someone has pretensions regarding the coalition-type collaboration, they should speak out.

“A coalition means constant collaboration and discussion in achieving common solutions,” Kutsnashvili suggested. Majority Republican MP Vakhtang Khmaladze admits that the statement hints on some problems and differences within the coalition. “The statement reveals that there are some problems that require adequate responses,” Khmaladze said.