Gubaz Sanikidze

Gubaz Sanikidze (Georgian: გუბაზ სანიკიძე; born on 2 February 1967) is a Georgian politician, currently serving as a member of the Parliament of Georgia from the United National Movement (UNM) since 2020.

Gubaz Sanikidze was born on 2 February 1967, in Kutaisi, at the time in Soviet Georgia.

After serving his mandatory military service in Tbilisi, he studied at the Tbilisi State University's Faculty of Oriental Studies, from which he graduated with a degree in Eastern National Geography.

During that time, he interned at the Damascus University in Syria.

He is a Doctor in Historical Sciences.

A career historian, he was first elected to Georgia's legislature during the 1990 elections that saw the downfall of the Soviet regime, as a member of the conservative Traditionalist Party.

He has worked as an assistant in the Department of Ancient World History in 1990–1991 and in 1995–2005 at TSU.

He is married and has two children.

Besides Georgian, he speaks Russian and Arabic.

Gubaz Sanikidze entered politics shortly after graduating, in the midst of the pro-independence Georgian national movement.

In 1990, he joined the Union of Georgian Traditionalists (UGT), one of the first legally-recognized political parties in Soviet Georgia, a conservative organization supporting independence and monarchism.

With UGT joining the Round Table—Free Georgia coalition led by dissident leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia, he was elected as a member of the Supreme Council of Georgia during the legislative elections of 28 October that year, through the bloc's electoral list in Ambrolauri.

In the Supreme Council, he backed Zviad Gamsakhurdia as the first non-communist leader of Georgia.

On 9 April 1991, he was one of the signatories of the Act of Restoration of the Independence of Georgia.

In the subsequent coup d'état against Gamsakhurdia, the proclamation of a Military Council and the abolition of the legislature on 2 January 1992, his term ended abruptly.

After the Georgian Civil War, Gubaz Sanikidze returned to politics, becoming the Vice-Chairman of UGT in 1995.

Following the Georgian Civil War, his party formed an alliance with the authoritarian leader of Adjara Aslan Abashidze and he was elected to a second term as MP in 1999, during which he became an opponent to President Eduard Shevardnadze.

In 1999, the party joined the electoral bloc formed by Adjara's strongman governor Aslan Abashidze and he was elected to Parliament during that year's parliamentary elections through Abashidze's Revival party list.

From 2000 to 2004, he served as head of Georgia's parliamentary delegation to Arab countries.

In opposition to President Eduard Shevardnadze, he served as deputy chairman of the UGT faction in Parliament, maintaining the post after the party split away from Revival.

He routinely criticized the Shevardnadze government for its lack of transparency in foreign policy and the perceived lack of progress in the Abkhaz conflict resolution process.

During the 2003 parliamentary elections, his party joined Speaker Nino Burjanadze's forces to form the National Democratic Alliance and Sanikidze was 18th on the coalition's electoral list.

After the rise to power of a new government with the Rose Revolution, he remained in the opposition and lost his seat in 2004, launching with other veteran politicians the National Forum.

Despite winning a seat in that year's race, the Rose Revolution led to the cancellation of the results and his party failed to gather enough votes in the subsequent 2004 elections.

Following the Rose Revolution, Gubaz Sanikidze became a short-lived chairman of the UGT parliamentary faction (which lost representation in April 2004).

During the first months of the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, he was one of the first opponents of the popular pro-Western government, criticizing the distribution of powers between Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze and the alleged government pressure on independent political talk shows on television.

During the Adjara crisis that saw the overthrow of Aslan Abashidze, he accused the central government of "aggravating the situation."

On 15 December 2006, Gubaz Sanikidze was one of the veteran political figures to create the National Forum (NF), an opposition political party chaired by diplomat Kakha Shartava.

As such, he sat on the party's Political Council and chaired its Tbilisi affiliate, often considered to be a more vocal and popular figure than Shartava himself.

He briefly served a third term in Parliament in 2008, resigning his seat two weeks after being elected.

The NF aligned itself with the United Opposition coalition that backed Levan Gachechiladze's presidential bid in 2008 and in that same year's parliamentary elections, Sanikidze was the United Opposition's nominee for the majoritarian parliamentary district of Kutaisi, running against two former governors of Imereti, Akaki Bobokhidze (United National Movement) and Temur Shashiashvili (Christian-Democratic Alliance), while Industrialist Temur Shalikiani dropped out to endorse him.

While losing his majoritarian race, he was still elected to Parliament through the United Opposition's electoral list (on which he was in 7th position as NF's highest-ranking member).

Sanikidze refused to accept his parliamentary seat because of alleged massive electoral fraud.

One of 12 MPs to do so, he called all the legislators that would accepted their parliamentary seat "anti-Georgia traitors" and threatened to "use force to prevent Parliament from convening."

He rapidly became one of the most radical opponents to Saakashvili, calling for his resignation, blaming him for the Russia-Georgia War and comparing him to Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov, originally refusing any talks with the government to put an end to the political crisis, and organizing a blockade of the East-West Highway in May 2009 during NATO-Georgia military exercises.

In May 2009, he softened his stance and was one of the opposition's negotiators in talks with Parliamentary Speaker Davit Bakradze and calling for an "unconditional meeting" with President Saakashvili.

A vocal critique of President Mikheil Saakashvili, Sanikidze joined the Georgian Dream coalition as it defeated UNM in 2012 and won a fourth term in Parliament as Majoritarian MP from Kutaisi.

He successively served as Chairman of the Diaspora and Caucasus Committee, pushing for closer ties between Georgia and Iran, and as Vice Speaker of Parliament.

In 2016, Sanikidze left the National Forum and became an opponent of the GD government.

He would be reelected, this time as a member of SIU, to Parliament in 2020.