One of the leaders of the Coalition for Change, Elene Khoshtaria, announced that the coalition has applied to the CEC with a statement regarding the withdrawal of the parliamentary list.
As she stated, after the CEC’s response, the members of the coalition who are on the list will also individually apply to the parliament regarding the withdrawal of their mandates.
“We are fighting, we do not recognize the election results, and this parliament cannot be formed if we continue this fight. First, the party lists must be canceled, and then we will individually apply to the parliament to cancel the mandates. We did the same in 2020 and have not spent a single day in this parliament. Today, our position is stronger, and this is the international position as well. There will be no parliament that is not recognized by either the opposition, the international community, or the people. Those citizens who spent the whole night here, those people who are now in prisons, should know that they have a solid wall in the form of the opposition,” says Elene Khoshtaria.
Former Constitutional Court judge and member of the Coalition for Changes Maia Kopaleishvili explained that if the coalition does not first remove the list and directly appeals to the parliament to cancel individual mandates, the mandate that will be vacated may be replaced from the list itself. Therefore, she said, it is important to first remove the lists, and then write individual statements to the parliament from the people with the mandate.
“The CEC has three days to respond to the request regarding the removal of the lists. If we do not receive a response within this time, it will automatically be considered that the lists have been removed. After that, the procedures for individual statements will begin,” notes Maia Kopaleishvili.
Based on the practice of the previous parliament, it is still unknown whether the Georgian Dream will satisfy the opposition members’ applications to cancel their mandates. The previous parliament did not satisfy such a request of Elene Khoshtaria and Zura Japaridze. They even appealed this issue to the Constitutional Court, but a decision has not been made. The leaders of the Georgian Dream have not yet said whether they intend to satisfy the opposition members’ applications.
