National Independence Party of Georgia

The group was established in 1988 by Irakli Tsereteli, a member of the pro-independence Ilia Chavchavadze Society as a focus for more radical members of that group.^[2] It took a strongly nationalist and anti-communist ideological position.^[1]

On 30 September 1990 they took part in elections to the Georgian National Congress, an unofficial body established by pro-independence groups who were boycotting the elections to the Supreme Soviet. With 35.6% of the vote and 71 seats in the new body the NIP was the largest group within the body, although in practice the Congress had little real power.^[2]

The party was strongly opposed to the country joining the Commonwealth of Independent States and in general took a strong line of opposition to Eduard Shevardnadze with Tsereteli instigating a programme of public protests in June 1993 to force the then Chairman of Parliament to resign. The initiative was not a success.^[2]

They won four seats in the Parliament of Georgia at the 1992 general election but lost them three years later.^[3] Along with other radical nationalist groups they were damaged by a constitutional change that now required 5% of the vote to gain seats in Parliament and they fell short of this total.^[2] Before the election attempts had been made to form an electoral bloc with other radical right-wing elements such as the Merab Kostava Society, Charter 91, the remnants of the Ilia Chavchavadze Society and monarchist groups but these floundered due to political and personality clashes.^[4]

The party, and indeed their competitors on the hard-line nationalist scene, all faded in the mid 1990s as part of a wider de-radicalisation of Georgian politics that saw attempts to build more normal relations with Russia in the aftermath of the War in Abkhazia as well as a desire to forge ever closer links to European institutions as an alternative to nationalist isolation.^[5]

The party did not contest any subsequent elections but continued as an extra-parliamentary opposition. In the run-up to the 2000 presidential election Tsereteli was prominent in the Centre for Georgia's Freedom and Independence, a group that advocated a boycott of the election, while also maintaining his leadership of the NIP.^[6] Also translated as the Georgian Centre for Democracy and Freedom, this was an electoral alliance of 25 opposition parties, 14 of which - including the Ilia Chavchavadze Society, Georgian Labour Party, the United Republican Party, and the Greens - supported a boycott of the election as they argued the early vote was unconstitutional.^[7] The NIP was still listed in existence as of 2002^[8] while Tsereteli was still described as party leader in 2006 when he was arrested on charges of encouraging Emzar Kvitsiani in his activities in the Kodori Valley.^[9]

• Union of Citizens of Georgia