Six candidates named for Tbilisi Mayor’s post
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Monday, April 14
The non-parliamentary opposition parties have failed to name a common candidate for the Tbilisi Mayor’s post.
New Rights and Free Georgia have named Kakha Kukava as their candidate for the Tbilisi mayoral office in the June 15 local elections.
Kukava, is the leader of the Free Georgia party, ran for a majoritarian MP seat in 2013 by-election in Tbilisi’s Nadzaladevi constituency, garnering slightly over 17% of the votes and was defeated by the Georgian Dream candidate Tamar Kordzaia. Currently Kukava is a member of the Tbilisi City Council.
New Rights and Free Democrats held consultations with Nino Burjanadze to form an opposition alliance, but failed to reach an agreement. Burjanadze’s Democratic Movement-United Georgia (DMUG) formed an alliance with the Christian-Democratic Movement (CDM) naming the former lawmaker Dimitri Lortkipanidze as the mayoral candidate.
Lortkipanidze was a member of the parliament in 2008-2012. In 2009 he took part in the race for the Public Defender’s position. However, he was unsuccessful. The Christian Democrats supported his nomination then.
There are six candidates already named for the Tbilisi Mayor’s post. The rest are: Davit Narmania named by the coalition Georgian Dream; Nika Melia, head of Tbilisi’s Mtatsminda district, named by the parliamentary minority United National Movement, MP Giorgi Gachechiladze, who is the leader of the Greens’ Party and who quit the GD parliamentary majority in February, and actress Asmat Tkabladze, represented by the Labour Party.
Narmania claims that he would not use administrative resources when he is elected. He is sure that he will win and there would not be a need for a second round of voting.
Kakha Kukava believes that his major opponent in the elections is Narmania.
Tkabladze believes that she does not have any opponents and she would be the “housewife of Tbilisi.”
Lortkipanidze invites all the opponents for debates after several days when he officially launches his election campaign.
Lortkipanizde states that it is important that a third wing candidate win the election so that a political monopoly is not encouraged in the country.
Nika Melia promises an active election campaign, as well and he is sure of his success.
Analyst Soso Tsiskarishvili believes that division in non-parliamentary opposition parties will cause their failure in the election. According to him, the candidates of the opposition parties will take away each other’s votes.
“The situation decreases the chance of holding a second round of elections,” Tsiskarishvili states. The analyst believes that Narmania and Lortkipanidze are the major opponents in the race, where Narmania has more experience in management and higher chances of winning.
