Having just defended the PhD on the concept of Social Licence to Operate (SLO), I thought it would be useful to provide some explanation what is the concept and why is it relevant for Georgia.

Since the PTI became applicable to all vehicles, there had been a plethora of blog posts, articles, FAQs, TV stories and interviews about what you should know. Nevertheless, it is apparent that there is still much confusion among the general public and even many guides and articles are not always accurate.

 The UK’s decision to leave the EU, so called, ‘Brexit’ has created turmoil in the UK and in the EU, initially hitting global stock markets hard and subsequently creating a confusing picture. Despite the fluidity of the situation, this article reflects on some of the possible consequences of Brexit for Georgia.

 The core idea of the New Silk Road is to create an effective transit corridor from the Black Sea across Georgia, Azerbaijan and Central Asia to China and beyond. This idea is built on Chinese and Central Asian trade routes that reached their height in the 10th Century and, while it has many elements, is largely driven by trade and energy issues.

Heavy manufacturing industry in Georgia is one of the most important sectors in terms of value added, exports and employment. It is also one of the few areas where there are large companies with immediate opportunity for dramatic expansion…

If we combine the majoritarian lists for the Georgian Dream (GD) and the party list, then the current breakdown of the GD coalition in parliament is as follows:

So, everyone seems to agree that the new constitution, that comes into effect at the time of the appointment of the next President, will give more power to the parliament and the Prime Minister. By implication people seem to be suggesting that this means the new PM will have relatively little power until that time. There is some truth to this.

When discussing election results there is a fairly considerable tendency to talk about the party list and national polls. But Georgia’s Mixed Member Majoritarian system (MMM) means that 73 out of the 150 seats are majoritarian, and so are allocated on the basis of whoever gets the most votes in a given geographic region.

According to the NDI polls 37% of likely voters say that they would vote for the national movement and 12% say they would vote for the Georgian Dream. Does this tell us anything about actual likely election results and, if so, what?

Employing around 53% of the Georgian labor force, no-one doubts the importance of the agricultural sector. However, until very recently it has not been a key focus of the Georgian government or private investment. In the last two years though, this situation has started to turn around dramatically.