On 23 April, twenty-six opposition parties and one independent parliamentarian released a joint statement in which they urged Georgia’s foreign partners ‘to remind’ the ruling Georgian Dream party ‘how important it is to fully fulfill election agreements from 8 March with the opposition,’ reported agenda.ge.
The statement said that fully abiding by the agreement includes the release of opposition leaders Irakli Okruashvili and Gigi Ugulava and opposition supporter Giorgi Rurua. “As soon as the coronavirus pandemic fades, this (not fully meeting the agreement) will again throw the country back into political turmoil and increase risks in the run up to the October elections,” the statement further read.
On 13 April, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced Georgia’s former defense minister Irakli Okruashvili to five years in jail for engaging in mass violence during the June protests. Okruashvili’s sentence caused negative reactions from the opposition parties, as well as the EU and US embassies in Georgia (Caucasus Watch reported). As for the former mayor of Tbilisi and one of the leaders of European Georgia Gigi Ugulava, he was sentenced on 10 February to three years and two months in prison by Georgian Supreme Court for the embezzlement of 48 million lari from the Tbilisi Municipal Development fund while in office (Caucasus Watch reported). The EU Parliament considered forming a fact-finding mission in order to look into Ugulava’s case (Caucasus Watch reported). As for Giorgi Rurua, the brother of the deceased official under the United National Movement government Nikoloz Rurua, was detained on 18 November 2019 for alleged possession and carrying of a firearm. The Georgian opposition said that the firearm was planted and the detention was “politically grounded,” which the ruling Georgian Dream party members strongly dismissed.
On 8 March, the ruling Georgian Dream party and the united opposition, with the mediation of the US and EU ambassadors to Georgia Kelly Degnan and Carl Hartzell, reached an agreement on holding the upcoming parliamentary elections in October. The agreement foresees 120 seats in the legislative body to be distributed via a proportional vote and the remaining 30 via the majoritarian system. The leader of the New Georgia party Giorgi Vashadze added that the parties also agreed on the release of political prisoners in order to overcome the political crisis in the country (Caucasus Watch reported).
