Conservatives will stay with ruling coalition
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, July 12
The Conservative Party will take part in the upcoming October 8 parliamentary elections with the ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GDDG) party, as there will be no Georgian Dream (GD) coalition for the elections.
Currently, the GD coalition - which was founded for the 2012 parliamentary elections by Georgia’s ex-Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili - is composed of five different parties.
The GDDG, Republicans, Industrials and the National Forum announced they would run independently in the elections; however, the leader of the Conservative Party, Zviad Dzidziguri, stated he wished to stay with the ruling party and was in talks with GDDG leaders.
Member of the GDDG Zakaria Kutsnashvili confirmed that the Conservative Party would participate in the elections with the GDDG.
Kutsnashvili did not exclude some other “exceptions” as well.
The GD coalition was founded to defeat the previous United National Movement (UNM) government in the 2012 elections. At that time, the GD coalition was composed of representatives from the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party; the Republican Party of Georgia; Our Georgia - Free Democrats; the Conservative Party of Georgia; Industry Will Save Georgia political party; the People’s Party of Georgia; the National Forum political party and several other independent MPs.
The People's Party quit the coalition in 2013, while the Free Democrats did the same in 2014.
Despite the fact that the parties announced they would run separately in the elections, they agreed they would preserve unity until the elections.
Ministers from the Republican Party have also retained their posts.
