MP Giorgi Gachechiladze announced on February 19 about quitting Georgian Dream parliamentary majority group.

As a result GD will now have 84 members in the 150-seat legislative body.

MP Gachechiladze, who will now be an independent lawmaker, is a leader of Greens Party; although he became a lawmaker from GD’s party list in 2012 parliamentary elections, his Greens Party is not a member of GD six-party coalition.

His decision did not come as a surprise as MP Gachechiladze first signaled about having intention to quit the GD majority group six months ago when he voiced opposition to GD-proposed party funding scheme from which the Greens Party was not benefiting.

MP Gachechiladze said that stance towards the Greens Party within the GD ruling majority caused his move. “Although we are one of the oldest political parties in Georgia, the Greens Party has no function in the majority,” he said on February 19.

He is the second lawmaker to quit the GD ruling majority after MP Koba Davitashvili, who left the coalition last year to run for president in the October, 2013 election; after the elections Davitashvili announced about quitting the politics, but formally he still remains a member of parliament.