Who will be elected new Tbilisi mayor?

The Municipal Elections 2017 will take place in Georgia on October 21, the republic's President Giorgi Margvelashvili said at a press briefing this afternoon.

At these elections, self-governing cities will elect mayors as well as members and chairs of local councils.

The head of the Institute of Management Strategy, Petre Mamradze, speaking to a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the Georgian Dream's candidates would almost certainly win in both Tbilisi and in the regions - and not because the ruling coalition has significantly improved its work over the past years, but because it concentrated all the possible administrative resources in its hands to promote its people to key posts.

Mamradze expressed confidence that, in this regard, Tbilisi will be headed by the ex-head of the Ministry of Energy Kakha Kaladze with probability close to 100%, adding that there is no protest mood in the society that plays into the hands of the Georgian Dream party.

"There is no irritation that would lead people to hold mass protests and change everything, like in 2012 or during the Rose Revolution. Last year, the Georgian Dream party won all the 73 majority seats in the parliament," Petre Mamradze stressed.

Over the years, there has been no alternative to the Georgian Dream in Georgia. "Now there are no political forces, there are no political parties in Georgia. Yes, we have more than 260 registered parties, but there is no real political party in the republic. The main thing is that there is no charismatic leader, trusted by the people, like in the case of Saakashvili and Ivanishvili," the political scientist concluded.

The head of the Center for Global Studies, Nana Devdariani, also drew attention to Kakha Kaladze's significant resources as a Tbilisi mayoral candidate. "Of course, we can say nothing with certainty about elections, but Kaladze's chances are certainly high. He is not a poor man. The last parliamentary elections in Georgia showed how much money the government spends on promoting its candidates - and we can expect that the same thing will happen during the municipal elections. In addition to money, Kaladze also has a huge administrative resource," she said.

In general, these municipal elections, according to Devdariani, are characterized by a weakening of the former opposition. "During the local elections, everything will depend on positions of the opposition parties in the regions of the republic. Most likely, the Georgian Dream will struggle to get maximum votes. But the opposition has a number of problems now: the UNM has broken up into several parts, which has weakened it. Of course, there are other notable parties, such as the Alliance of Patriots and Burjanadze's party, but in fact, some of them were "destroyed" by the Georgian Dream. In addition, the Republicans disintegrated," Nana Devdariani summed up.