Free Democrats (FD) opposition party unveiled on Saturday top twenty candidates in its party list of MP candidates, who will run in the October 8 parliamentary elections.

The list, led by chairman of the party and ex-defense minister Irakli Alasania, includes all of FD’s eight incumbent lawmakers.

Irakli Alasania, who is on top of the list, is followed by MP Victor Dolidze; MP Nino Goguadze; MP Zurab Abashidze; MP Irakli Chikovani; MP Shalva Shavgulidze, and Tamar Kekenadze, head of the party’s regional service.
 
Alexi Petriashvili, who was the state minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, and Maia Panjikidze, who was the foreign minister for two years before FD quit the ruling GD coalition in November 2014, are eighth and ninth, respectively, on the list.

They are followed by party’s campaign chief MP Giorgi Tsagareishvili, and Tamar Amashukeli, an art critic and Tbilisi preservationist activist, who joined FD last year.

MP Davit Onoprishvili and MP Tamaz Shioshvili are twelfth and thirteenth, respectively, on the list, followed by Vakhtang Mchedlidze, who was Tbilisi City Council member from UNM party before quitting it in early 2011 and who joined FD party this year; Tinatin Revazishvili, also a newly recruited member of the FD, is a campaigner for ensuring equal accessibility for people with disabilities, who was vice president of the Georgian National Paralympic Committee in 2013-2014; Teimuraz Salukvadze, a member of FD party’s board; Tamar Koberidze, an executive director in the party since the beginning of 2015; Baniamin Kasimov, a Defense Ministry employee before joining FD party this spring; Nikoloz (Koka) Pruidze, who was deputy healthcare minister in 2004-2010, and Mikheil Avakian, head of the legal affairs department at the Armenian Diocese in Georgia, who joined FD this spring.

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Candidates ranked higher on their respective party’s list of MP candidates have more chances of getting seat in the legislative body if that party clears 5% threshold in nationwide vote.

77 seats in 150-member Parliament are allocated under the proportional, party-list system, and remaining 73 seats go to majoritarian MPs elected in single-mandate constituencies.

FD party has also unveiled list of its majoritarian MP candidates in 53 single-mandate constituencies. 11 of those 20 candidates who are on FD’s party list, will also be running as majoritarian MP candidates in various single-mandate constituencies, among them MPs Victor Dolidze in Tbilisi’s Vake district; Zurab Abashidze in Tbilisi’s Didube district; Irakli Chikovani in Zugdidi; Shalva Shavgulidze in Tbilisi’s one of Saburtalo district’s constituencies; Davit Onoprishvili in Tbilisi’s one of Saburtalo district’s constituencies; and Tamaz Shioshvili in Gori. 

Leader of the party, Irakli Alasania, is not among the majoritarian MP candidates.