Georgian ex-speaker Bakradze wins second round of primaries
By Nazrin Gadimova
Leader of the parliamentary minority and former speaker of the Georgian parliament Davit Bakradze won the second round of the primaries at President Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement (UNM), which was held in Gori on July 7.
He was followed by Giorgi Baramidze, who ranks second, and Zurab Japaridze, who was third. Shota Malashkhia was fourth in this round.
Baramidze was the longest serving cabinet minister when UNM was in power. First he held the interior minister's post after the 2003 Rose Revolution and then the defense minister's post in June-December 2004. He was the state minister for Euro-Atlantic integration issues from December 2004 to August 2012 before being named UNM's majoritarian MP candidate in the Batumi single-mandate constituency. Before joining the executive government in 2004 he spent almost ten years as a lawmaker.
MP Shota Malashkhia, who is also running in the UNM's presidential primaries, was chairman of the parliamentary commission on territorial integrity in the previous parliament.
Unlike three other contenders, MP Japaridze is relatively a newcomer in politics who joined the UNM ahead of the October parliamentary elections in 2012 and became a lawmaker through the UNM's party-list.
The third round of the primaries will be held in the Kakheti region on July 14.
The presidential candidate from UNM will be finally determined by July 30. In total, five more party conferences will be held in different regions of the country. The last conference will be held in the capital Tbilisi.
The 2013 presidential election in Georgia is scheduled for October. This will be the 6th presidential election after the country's declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The last one, held on January 5, 2008, resulted in the election of Mikheil Saakashvili for his second and final presidential term. According to the constitution, Saakashvili cannot run for a third consecutive term.
Upon the inauguration of a new president in 2013, a series of constitutional amendments passed in the parliament of Georgia from 2010 to 2013 will go into effect. The amendments envisage significant reduction of the President's powers in favor of the Prime Minister.