(Eurasianet) A series of defections from the ruling Georgian Dream party has left the party without the dominant majority it held in parliament and has exposed a growing fault line in the party ahead of elections next year.
Over the last several days, four GD members of parliament have announced, one by one, that they are leaving the party. The defections have reduced the party’s representation in parliament to below the two-thirds majority they once enjoyed, which allowed them to pass constitutional amendments without any other representatives’ support. […]
[…] The defections were not unexpected in light of the GD’s dimming prospects in the 2020 elections, said Kornely Kakachia, the head of the Tbilisi-based think tank Georgian Institute of Politics. It is an “unwritten rule” that Georgian voters don’t support the same party in more than two consecutive elections, he told Eurasianet. “Understanding this, and plagued by internal infighting, GD started a slow disintegration. After the last presidential election it became clear that GD and Ivanishvili may not win in 2020.”
The judiciary issue, he said, “is just a pretext for the old guard to leave GD in a face-saving way,” Kakachia said. […]
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