Victory of Georgian opposition in parliamentary elections within interests of Armenians of Javakhq

• Tuesday, October 2, 15:49

Victory of the Georgian opposition represented by Bidzina Ivanishvili's bloc Georgian Dream in the parliamentary elections in that country is within the interests of the Armenians of Javakhq, David Rstakyan, Head of Virk Party in Samtskhe-Javakheti, told ArmInfo. 

He said that the election program of Ivanishivili's bloc contains several provisions aimed to settle the problems of Javakhi Armenians. Thus, Georgian Dream is going to provide more powers to the local self- government in Javakhq, to provide $1 billion agricultural subsidies, with 40% of the total amount of subsidies will be provided to Javakhq. In addition, Rstakyan said that ivanishvili intends to introduce dual citizenship in Georgia, so the Armenians in Georgia can get also Armenian citizenship.  Commenting on the opinion that if Ivanishvili's bloc wins the elections, the foreign political vector of Georgia will change and the country will become Russia-oriented, Rstakyan said: "I have no such impression. Although Ivanishvili is for improvement of relations with Russia, the priority of his foreign policy is integration into Europe and NATO."

By preliminary data based on 20.74% of total votes or protocols from 781 polling stations out of 3766, the two leaders in the parliamentary elections in Georgia are Georgian Dream - 53.89% of votes and the ruling party United National Movement led by Mikheil Saakashvili - 41.01%.  The other parties have not yet overcome the 5% threshold to the parliament.  The elections are especially interesting as after the presidential election in 2013 in Georgia the
political and public system in the country will change and the parliament and the government will receive much more powers.