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In response to declining economic activity and easing inflation pressures, the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) on October 28 kept its key refinancing rate at 8%. The price dynamics in recent months were in line with forecasts, NBG said, with inflation continuing to decline, reaching 3.8% in September.
The central bank also stated that inflation, driven downward by weak aggregate demand, will adhere to a declining trend and remain close to the target level in 2021. Periodic currency interventions by the national lender would continue, it added. The central bank has emphasised that its monetary policy will remain tight in order to reduce inflationary expectations and return the inflation target to 3% in the first half of 2021.
On the political front, Billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream ruling party will in Georgia’s October 31 general election attempt to win a third consecutive mandate. It faces a challenge from an unlikely multitude of opposition parties united, or rather divided, by Ivanishvili’s arch-rival and fellow larger-than-life character, the self-exiled former president Mikhael Saakashvili.
Going into the election, Georgian Dream leads in most opinion polls. However, there appears to be a substantial number of ‘undecideds’, and none of the painted likely scenarios support an outcome in which it is able to form a new majority alone, while a two-thirds constitutional majority is even more unlikely. Further complicating the picture is the unknown impact on voters' decision-making that will be caused by a stark spike in coronavirus cases in Georgia in recent weeks, a blow to a government perceived to have done so well in managing the first wave of the pandemic.
2.0 Politics
2.1 Saakashvili and Ivanishvili cross swords once more in
Georgia’s weekend election
Billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream ruling party will in Georgia’s October 31 general election attempt to win a third consecutive mandate. It faces a challenge from an unlikely multitude of opposition parties united, or rather divided, by Ivanishvili’s arch-rival and fellow larger-than-life character, the self-exiled former president Mikhael Saakashvili.
Going into the election, Georgian Dream leads in most opinion polls. However, there appears to be a substantial number of ‘undecideds’, and none of the painted likely scenarios support an outcome in which it is able to form a new majority alone, while a two-thirds constitutional majority is even more unlikely. Further complicating the picture is the unknown impact on voters' decision-making that will be caused by a stark spike in coronavirus cases in Georgia in recent weeks, a blow to a government perceived to have done so well in managing the first wave of the pandemic.
While not ready to truly unite and form a controlling majority themselves, almost all of the opposition parties and certainly the big players (Saakashvili’s
6 GEORGIA Country Report November 2020 www.intellinews.com
