(Eurasianet) Georgia’s leading opposition party has nominated its polarizing leader, former president Mikheil Saakashvili, as its candidate for prime minister in elections next month. The move means the upcoming vote will be an explicit contest between the two fiercest rivals in Georgian politics: Saakashvili and the leader of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party, Bidzina Ivanishvili.
The United National Movement (UNM) party, which ruled Georgia from 2004 to 2012 under Saakashvili, announced on September 7 that it was nominating its former leader as its candidate for prime minister in the October 31 elections. […]
“Saakashvili’s nomination is a bad sign for the opposition,” said Kornely Kakachia, the head of the Tbilisi think tank Georgian Institute of Politics. “Georgia needs a consensus leader to challenge GD, not someone divisive like him,” Kakachia told Eurasianet. […]
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