Giorgi Targamadze, who recently quit his position as TV anchor at Imedi TV station, announced on February 7 the establishment of a new political party – the Christian-Democratic Movement, which will contest the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

Making Orthodox Christianity the state religion, he said, would be the party’s priority.

“In the nearest future the movement will launch a large-scale campaign in every town and village to collect the signatures of our citizens to initiate constitutional amendments making Orthodox Christianity the official religion in Georgia,” Targamadze said at a news conference. “This goal represents the cornerstone of an uncompromising struggle by the Christian-Democratic Movement against the current regime’s immorality and injustice.”

Former Imedi journalists Magda Anikashvili and Giorgi Akhvlediani and former Imedi producer Levan Vepkhvadze – all of whom left the station last month -  have joined Targamadze’s new political party.

Targamadze chaired the parliamentary faction of ex-Adjarian leader Aslan Abashidze’s Revival Union party until March 2003, when he resigned from Parliament and politics altogether. He then joined tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili’s Imedi TV where he was the head of political programs and the anchor of a popular weekly program, Droeba (Times).

In January, when Targamadze first indicated his intention to set up a new political party, he maintained that it would not be “fully correct” to say that he was making a political comeback. “When I was in Revival Union, it was not my politics; now I am creating my and my co-thinkers’ movement,” he said at the time. Targamadze, however, insisted he was not trying to distance himself from his own political past. “I am proud of that and there is nothing in my voting record [while in Parliament] that would make me ashamed,” he added.