Levan Gatchechiladze
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Levan Gatchetschiladze ( Georgian ლევან გაჩეჩილაძე ; born July 20, 1964 in Tbilisi ) is a Georgian businessman and politician ( non-party ). He is a member of the Georgian parliament and ran for president in the 2008 presidential elections in Georgia , but to no avail. In the Georgian parliamentary elections in May 2008, he was the top candidate of the United National Council .
Life
Study and job
Gatchechiladze studied mathematics and economics at the Tbilisi State University .
In 1994 he founded the Georgia Wine & Spirits (GWS) joint venture with a Dutch company . In 1999 he was named Georgian Businessman of the Year and GWS Company of the Year . He now owns 49% of the GWS shares. The others belong to the French wine and spirits group Pernod Ricard . Gatchechiladse's personal fortune is estimated at $ 10 million.
Most recently, he worked as a public relations manager at the Ilia Chavchavadze State University in Tbilisi.
MP
In 1999 he organized Mikheil Saakashvili's election campaign for the direct mandate in the constituency of Tbilisi-Wake, and was himself elected to the Georgian parliament as a candidate for the Georgian Citizens' Union . In 2000 he broke with President Eduard Shevardnadze's party and joined the opposition group New Fraction . In 2001 he founded the New Conservative Party with Dawit Gamqrelidse and became its chairman. In November 2003 he won the direct mandate for the electoral alliance New Right in constituency 2 Tiflis-Wake. He left the New Conservative Party because its leadership refused to support the Rose Revolution in Georgia and became a non-party member of the Democratic Front parliamentary group . He is a member of the parliamentary budget and finance committee.
Spokesman for the mass protests
In November 2007 Gatchechiladze became one of the spokesmen for the mass protests against the Georgian government . On November 3rd, he gave a speech in front of several thousand demonstrators in Tbilisi, in which he called for the resignation of the president: "We should say goodbye to Mikheil Saakashvili." As he left the podium, he mumbled swear words , which the public address system broadcast to the entire square.
On November 5, he was among four activists who started a hunger strike to bring the general election forward. When the police cracked down on the protests on November 7, he was injured and received outpatient hospital treatment.
Oppositional lead candidate
Presidential election
In the presidential elections in Georgia on January 5, 2008, he ran for the office of head of state and won 25.7% of the vote. With that he reached the second place after Mikheil Saakashvili. The campaign budget was 721,190 Lari (around 465,000 US dollars ), to which he himself contributed 93,000 Lari.
Politically he was supported by the United National Council's electoral alliance , to which the Republican Party of Georgia , the Conservative Party , the Georgian Way Party , the Freedom Movement (Tavisupleba) , Our Own Way , the People's Party , the Movement for a United Georgia , the Georgian Troop Party and the National Forum party .
In the event of his election victory, he announced that he would like to change the constitution in order to abolish the presidential system of government in Georgia and to strengthen the rights of the parliament on the Western European model. He also wanted to take action against violence and oppression as a means of politics. He considered the creation of a constitutional monarchy to be a constitutional option.
In terms of foreign policy, Gatchechiladze sought the reunification of South Ossetia and Abkhazia with Georgia by means of the repatriation of the Georgian refugees, a subsequent referendum and negotiations with Russia . Former Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili was to become Prime Minister under his presidency.
Parliamentary elections
The opposition United National Council announced in February 2008 that Gatchetschiladze would run as the top candidate on a joint opposition list for the parliamentary elections in May 2008.
Private
He is married and has three children. The family and the press call him Grechicha (German buckwheat ) for short . His brother is the Georgian pop singer Giorgi Gatchetschiladze, whose stage name is Uznobi (dt. ' Stranger' ).
Web links
- Biographical entry on the website of the Georgian Parliament (en, ge)
- Civil Georgia: Portrait Levan Gatchetschiladses (en, ge)
Individual evidence
- ^ Civil Georgia: Presidential Candidate Gachechiladze to Sell GWS Shares , December 6, 2007
- ^ Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty: Opposition Names Entrepreneur As Presidential Candidate , November 12, 2007
- ↑ a b Civil Georgia: Levan Gachechiladze ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , December 20, 2007
- ↑ Civil Georgia: Eight-Party Opposition Coalition to Run on Joint Ticket ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , February 29, 2008
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gatchechiladze, Levan |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | გაჩეჩილაძე, ლევან (Georgian) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Georgian businessman and politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 20, 1964 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tbilisi |