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Azerbaijanis Refuse to Participate in Georgia’s Parliamentary Elections

Politics Materials 22 April 2008 13:13 (UTC +04:00)
Azerbaijanis Refuse to Participate in   Georgia’s Parliamentary Elections

Azerbaijan, Baku, 21 April / ТrendNews corr J. Babayeva/ Geyrat, national movement of Georgian Azerbaijanis, has refused to nominate its candidates to Parliament in the list of candidates from the governing Unified National Movement, Alibala Askarov, head of Geyrat, said to Trend in a telephone conversation from Tbilisi on 21 April.

Georgia will host the parliamentary elections on 21 May. There are 62 political parties in Georgia which intend to participate in the elections. The new Parliament will consist of 150 MPs (the current Parliament includes 235 MPs), with 75 being elected through a proportional system and the other 75 through a majority system.

At the beginning of April Geyrat negotiated with Georgia's governing party to nominate two Azerbaijanis for the elections.

The Chairman of the Georgian Parliament, Nino Burjanadze, who is favoured in the election roll of the governing Unified National Movement, said to Trend that the party is ready to represent Georgian Azerbaijanis in its election roll.

According to Askarov, Geyrat refused to participate because the governing party had offered the remaining places in its proportional list to Geyrat candidates. "If Geyrat candidates are nominated from the bottom of the proportional list, they will have no chance to be elected," Askarov said.

About 500,000 Azerbaijanis populate Georgia, mainly in the Kvemo-Kartli region.

The governing Georgian party nominated Azerbaijani Azer Suleymanov in the majority list of the Marneuli region.

The correspondent can be contacted at: [email protected]

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