Georgia: Political Shifts Ahead of Elections

Bidzina Ivanishvili, the head of the Georgian Dream opposition movement, has called for a rally to be held in Tbilisi's Freedom Square on May 27. At the rally, Ivanishvili will launch the opposition's political campaign for Georgia's parliamentary elections, which are to be held in October.

Georgia's domestic political arena has been fairly active since 2011, with Ivanishvili's emergence as an opposition leader and the consolidation of several of Georgia's opposition movements into a bloc that will attempt to challenge Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's United National Movement (UNM) party in the upcoming elections. Although the parliamentary elections will be an important indicator of Georgia's domestic political climate, any potential change in Tbilisi's geopolitical stance will not occur until after Georgia's presidential election in 2013.