New opposition party established in Georgia
The delegates, 1,100 people, who gathered in the Expo Georgia centre, elected lawyer Manana Kobakhidze the party chairwoman. At the meeting she said she would head the party until its founder took the reins of government in his hands.
On October 11, 2011, under President Mikhail Saakashvili's decree, Ivanishvili was stripped of Georgian citizenship. A person without citizenship may not head and finance a political party. Ivanishvili's attorneys try to return Georgian citizenship to him.
Ivanishvili, chairman of the opposition public coalition Georgian Dream formed by him in December 2011, said that he would participate in establishment of a party that would later turn into a political bloc Ivanishvili -- Georgian Dream. "I will be leader of the bloc and become a candidate to be prime-minister of the country," he said.
For the first time he declared he came into politics in early October 2011. Some days later, the Civil Registry Agency of the Georgian Justice Ministry said that in accordance with President Saakashvili's decree, Ivanishvili was stripped of citizenship, since he was a Russian citizen at the same time, but it is prohibited by the local law.
