Tbilisi’s City Hall, completed 1878, stands on Liberty Square, behind a monument to St George. Photo CC-by-SA-2.0: George Kvizhinadze / Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.
Amid heated discussions about new constitutional reforms initiated by the ruling Georgian Dream government, Georgia is gearing up for local elections this October. The contest is likely to be a fight for survival for the remnants of the United National Movement (UNM), the former ruling party of Mikheil Saakashvili, which split in two at the start of this year. Some eleven regional district and city heads are to be elected, but the greatest prize will be Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital and largest economic hub.
The talk in Tbilisi is all about the candidates for the city’s next mayor, and what their priorities will be in governing the city (elections for the Sakrebulo, or City Assembly, will also be held in parallel). But for all this excitement, our society hasn’t paid a lot of attention to the political significance of mayor’s role and what powers it has to change anything. What, then, is the measure of a mayor in Georgia today?
