MP Kadagishvili: Saakashvili aims to replace stagnant party base through alliance with Nanuka Zhorzholiani

“The sheer disarray unfolding within the United National Movement demonstrates yet again that this party’s political strategy in Georgia has collapsed in total failure,” the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Regional Policy and Self-Government, MP Irakli Kadagishvili, has stated.

Kadagishvili argues that the opposition is completely gridlocked, meaning they can’t make decisions, and the party can no longer actually function by its own constitutional rules.

“The very destruction that this party sought to inflict upon the country has, ultimately, boomeranged right back into their own ranks. What defines a political party? The driving forces behind any party’s core are its ideology, its structure, and its active membership. Yet they are now demanding that the party’s grassroots, core ideology, and very structure be thrown out the window to make way for a completely arbitrary council. What difference does it make what kind of flattering name you give it?

The reality is clear: Mikheil Saakashvili wants to entirely sideline the current party establishment and leadership cadre to engineer a new faction centred around Nanuka Zhorzholiani. He may well have some pragmatic rationale behind this. Saakashvili likely believes that the party’s existing cohort has no future and needs to be phased out, using Nanuka Zhorzholiani to create a political symbiosis. Whether this will generate any real traction is highly questionable; these are simply the desperate actions of a compromised leader,” Irakli Kadagishvili remarked.