🇬🇪 Georgia on my mind: Parliamentary elections on 26 October

[CumbrianLefty]

The f•••, so does the Georgian Left even exist?

Social Liberalism is a real niche in Georgian politics. Classical social liberal position such as being pro LGBT are widely opposed (I believe 95 % disapprove of homosexuality), while Georgia is quite progressive on women's rights in comparison to other Eastern European countries having introduced a women's quota of 25 % for the upcoming elections (and actually having had 2 female Presidents).

That sort of figure must be rare outside (some) Muslim countries these days.

(I mean, even Russia has a significantly larger pro-LGBT minority)

[CumbrianLefty]

Aren't there still quite a few Stalin fans in Georgia? How do they tend to break, politically speaking?

[CumbrianLefty]

GD has introduced a bill into Parliament that gives vibes of Saakashvili's attempts to undermine democracy in his second term. It includes the following demands:

- Stripping the boycotting opposition parties of their state funding
- Restricting political ad airtime for those parties
- Consideration of cancelling election registration for UNM

This is major blow and shows that GD is just as authoritarian as UNM used to be, with the only exception that GD has much more financial resources and already succeeded in all attempts of power-grabbing (unlike UNM, having been voted out).

And this is......surprising?

[CumbrianLefty]

Ivanishvili just resigned as GD leader to retire completely from politics.

We'll see how that plays out. GD is full of his protegées, and whenever he disapproved of someone, they were easily replaced. So we'll see what happens, but this is quite a bombshell announcement.

Don't these totally personality based parties often collapse once the figurehead is gone?