At a plenary session of Georgia’s one-party parliament on February 5, the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party voted to revoke the mandates of 49 opposition MPs from three political factions, none of whom took their seats in parliament following the contested October 2024 elections.

19 mandates were revoked from the Coalition for Change, 16 from the Unity – National Movement coalition and 14 from the Strong Georgia coalition. The results of the vote were met with applause by the members of the GD majority.

The decision to annul 49 mandates reduces the total number of seats in the Georgian parliament from 150 to 101.

In November 2024, MPs from the opposition coalitions submitted official applications to have their mandates revoked. This decision followed the contested parliamentary elections of October 26.

According to the official Central Election Commission results, GD won 54% of the vote and 89 parliamentary seats, yet polling day was marred by widespread allegations from local and international observers of electoral violations and irregularities.

The disputed vote triggered an ongoing wave of civil unrest across the Black Sea country, with civil society and government critics raising concerns of Moscow’s mounting interference in Georgia via the pro-Russian GD party.

All four opposition factions that surpassed the 5% electoral threshold in October – the above three opposition coalitions and the Gakharia for Georgia opposition party – unanimously declared the vote fraudulent, stated they did not recognise the results and renounced their seats in the newly-elected parliament, which they view as illegitimate.

Unlike the three coalitions, members of Gakharia for Georgia did not apply to have their mandates revoked, and therefore retain 12 seats in parliament, despite also disputing the legitimacy of GD’s majority.

GD’s decision to approve the opposition MPs’ appeal to resign their mandates was backed by the parliament’s Committee on Procedural Issues and Rules.

“The committee has considered and supported their [Unity – National Movement, Coalition for Change and Strong Georgia’s] written request for early termination of their mandates,” the committee chair, Davit Matikashvili, stated, according to reports from local platform Civil.ge.

Parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili also defended the decision. “Those who attempt to blackmail democracy and the people of Georgia will always receive a fair, constitutional and lawful response,” Papuashvili declared, as reported by Interpressnews.

GD has repeatedly accused the domestic “radical opposition” and “external forces”, which they refer to as the “deep state”, of pressuring and “blackmailing” the Georgian government, attempting to incite a Maidan-esque revolution in the Caucasus country and drag Georgia into Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Following the vote, three GD MPs announced their resignation from the ruling party to form a “healthy” political opposition faction within parliament, as reported by local outlet OC Media.

While seven MPs are usually required to form a parliamentary political group, the Georgian outlet Publika reported that this number will be lowered to three.

Ilia Inzhia, Varlam Liparteliani and Nika Elisashveli said they would establish the new bloc on the basis of the Party of European Socialists, a rightwing, populist group founded in 2021. While nominally independent of GD, it has loyalty backed ruling party policy, for example the controversial “foreign agent” law of spring 2024 and the anti-LGBT bill of the autumn.

“Our attitude towards the radical opposition will remain as principled as it has been until now,” Inzhia stated at a briefing on February 5. “We will do everything to prevent the [United] National Movement from making a comeback and the country from returning to its dark past,” said the MP, who is the son of the European Socialists chair, Fridon Inzhia.

In January, the GD parliament announced the creation of an investigative commission to look into alleged “systemic crimes” committed by Mikheil Saakashvili’s UNM government from 2003-12, a period the ruling party described as a “bloody nine years”.

In comments to the opposition channel TV Pirveli following GD’s vote, opposition leaders highlighted how the termination of their mandates signals increasing efforts by the ruling party to stifle political dissent.

“[The oligarch GD founder and Georgia’s de-factor ruler] Ivanishvili has orders from the Kremlin to neutralise all politicians who play a significant role in civil resistance and protests,” said one of the leaders of the Strong Georgia coalition, Irakli Kupradze.

UNM member Khatia Dekanoidze insisted that her and her colleagues’ main objective is to “push this [GD] regime in a way that ensured its downfall”, highlighting the importance of withstanding the mounting pressure from the ruling party.