MEP Kubilius: If GD won’t receive 43% of votes in elections, EU will empower pressure for repeat parliamentary race

MEP Andrius Kubilius says that if the Georgian Dream (GD) ruling party fails to receive at least 43 percent of votes in the upcoming, October 2 municipal elections, the EU will empower its pressure on the ruling party to accept the holding of repeat parliamentary elections as the April 2021 EU-mediated agreement proposed this. 

 

The GD withdrew from the EU-mediated agreement at the end of July and stated that ‘no repeat parliamentary elections’ will take place in the country ‘even in the case we receive one percent of votes in municipal elections.’ 

 

However, the opposition is still hopeful that the ruling party will have to accept the conduct of repeat parliamentary elections if the total votes it receives will be fewer than 43 percent. 

 

In his comments for opposition-minded Mtavari Arkhi channel Kubilius also said that the return of Georgia’s former President Mikheil Saakashvili to Georgia for the elections ‘will strain the political situation.’ 

 

Saakashvili has vowed he will return from Ukraine for the elections despite the high possibility of his arrest. 

 

GD is sure Saakashvili will not act in this way.