Georgia – Six parliamentary groups and a multi-party government

The situation in Georgia is even more interesting than I thought.

The election produced a turnover in power with the Georgian Dream party (or coalition) winning 85 seats and the incumbent UNM party (or coalition) winning 65 seats.

Parliament has now met for the first time and, Civil.Ge reports, six parliamentary groups have formed, three from the UNM and three from Georgian Dream. The minimum number for a group is six deputies.

The reports shows that the GD group itself has 65 deputies, the Georgian Dream-Free Democrats group has 11 deputies and there is also a third faction, Georgian Dream-Republicans.

For its part, the UNM has 46 deputies, the UNM-Majoritarians have 7 deputies and the UNM-Regions have 7 deputies.

This is interesting because, over and above the alternation in power, there seems to be a genuine multi-party competition beneath the two-block politics.

This competition is also interesting in terms of coalition-building. Xinhua.net reports the party affiliations of the proposed cabinet ministers. It shows that there are various experts, most of whom, I suspect, are close to the Georgian Dream leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili. However, it also shows that there are seven Georgian Dream ministers (not counting the PM), four Georgian Dream-Free Democrats ministers, including the Vice-PM, and one minister from Georgian Dream-Republicans. This suggests that Georgian Dream-Free Democrats are a little over-represented on the basis of their parliamentary strength.

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