Levan Gachechiladze, a co-founder of public movement Defend Georgia, welcomed on February 22 Irakli Alasania’s decision to engage in broad consultations with opposition forces to select a single Tbilisi mayoral candidate in the May local elections.

Gachechiladze, who was a presidential candidate of large group of opposition parties in 2008 elections, was speaking at a news conference few hours after the Alasania’s announcement.

The press conference, however, again failed to shed a light on Gachechiladze’s plans whether he would himself run or not in for the mayoral office. He said he would decide in the course of consultations.

“I will engage in the process of selecting a single mayoral candidate,” Gachechiladze said and added it would become clear in the process of consultations how a single candidate would be selected – whether through primaries, through public opinion survey or something else.

He said that decision of Alasania to engage in consultations was an important step towards opposition’s unity and “towards victory.”