Georgian Dream loses majority in Adjara Supreme Council

The Georgian Dream coalition (GD) was victorious in the 2012 and 2014 parliamentary, presidential and local elections, but recently it suffered an abrupt defeat in the Adjara Autonomous Republic, where a couple of days ago it lost its majority in the region’s legislative body.

The fall was largely due to intra-party confrontation, which negatively impacts the coalition’s prestige.

There is speculation that similar facts might take place in other regions as well.

Originally, when Adjara’s Supreme Council was elected in October of 2012. The seats in the 21-member local legislative body were divided between 13 members of the six-party GD coalition and 8 members from the opposition United National Movement (UNM).

After Irakli Alasania’s Free Democrats (FD) quit the GD in November, two FD members belonging to Adjara’s Supreme Council also quit, leaving the GD with 11 seats – enough to make key decisions without the support of opposition members of the council.

But in early February, when Chairperson of Human Rights Committee in the Supreme Council Medea Vasadze also quit the GD, the coalition lost its leading position.

The process was followed by more unpleasant developments for the Georgian Dream.

Eight UNM members of the Supreme Council then initiated procedures for sacking the GD’s Davit Batsikadze from the post of vice speaker and the GD’s Alexandre Chitishvili from the post of Supreme Council’s Committee for Financial and Economic Issues, accusing them of mismanagement and failing to perform their duties.

Through the support of former and acting GD members, the individuals have been sacked.

The head of the legislative body Avtandil Beridze called the situation a “political crisis”, stating that he will be the next to be fired.

Commenting on the issue, Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili called the actions “traitorous”. He stressed that taking such a step was their choice. However, the coalition would have a “strong reaction”.

The Prime minister and Georgian Dream members have already met with Beridze, Batsikadze and other members of the Supreme Council.

The meeting was closed to the media. Beridze stated after the meeting that they had discussed the situation in Adjara.

The Georgian Dream has already lost its majority in the Adjara Supreme Council. However, if the two current members of the Georgian Dream – Jemal Putkaradze and Svetlana Kudba – are also dismissed from the coalition for their votes in favor of sacking Chitishvili and Batsikadze, the configuration will be as such: The opposition United National Movement- 8 MPs, the Georgian Dream-7 MPs , the Free Democrats-2 MPs and two independent MPs.