TBILISI, September 27 – Georgia’s ruling party Georgian Dream has announced it will ask the country’s Constitutional Court to outlaw the opposition United National Movement (UNM), the party founded by former president Mikheil Saakashvili.
The move follows the conclusion of a six-month inquiry by a parliamentary investigative commission led by Vice Speaker Tea Tsulukiani. She said the commission’s 500-page report, with thousands of pages of annexes including audio and video material, documented abuses during UNM’s nine years in power and proved the party cannot change its political behavior.
According to Tsulukiani, the report will be published in book form by the end of October and accompanied by an archive of supporting materials. She argued the evidence shows UNM represents the same threat today as when it governed, warning that if the party were to return to power it would repeat or worsen past actions.
Tsulukiani said Georgian Dream sees banning UNM as a necessary step for the country’s democratic future, stressing that while Georgian Dream will not hold power forever, it wants to ensure that Saakashvili’s allies cannot return to government.
The UNM ran the country from 2004 till 2012, when it lost the election on a wave of discontent with its authoritarian rule, prison torture and top level corruption. UNM has argued that legal steps against its former rule are a form of political persecution by GD to crush dissent, an interpretation that has gained traction abroad.
