New Political Centre – Girchi (Georgian: ახალი პოლიტიკური ცენტრი – გირჩი, romanized: akhali p'olit'ik'uri tsent'ri – girchi, lit. 'pine cone') is a right-libertarian political party in Georgia. It was founded in 2015 by dissenting members of United National Movement, and was initially led by co-founder Zurab Japaridze until 2018. Since then Iago Khvichia has served as the party's chairman. The party first entered parliament in 2020 with four deputies, with help of the lowered threshold. Internal disagreements during the 2020–2021 Georgian political crisis and a scandal involving Iago Khvichia's remarks defending a suspect arrested for purchasing and watching child pornography triggered Japaridze's departure from the party, with him setting up Girchi - More Freedom. The party failed to return in parliament in the 2024 Georgian parliamentary election. Girchi is a proponent of free market, small government and deregulation and is against most forms of taxation. The party supports drug liberalization, legalization of sex work, the abolition of military conscription and is in favor of gun rights and unrestricted freedom of speech. Girchi has been called a "youth-based right-wing party". Some of the main achievements of the party are the legalization of cannabis in Georgia, for both recreational and medical purposes.
History
Early years (2015–2020)
Foundation
The origins of Girchi date back to May 2015 when four members of Parliament, Zurab Japaridze, Goga Khachidze, Pavle Kublashvili, and Giorgi Meladze, left the opposition United National Movement party to establish a "new political centre". Japaridze (who until his departure served as the Executive Secretary of UNM) criticized the party for "failing to renew itself", hinting at the continued influence of former President Mikheil Saakashvili in the organization's internal affairs. Japaridze's departure was seen as the first time when the party's high-profile member quit. The first chairman of the party was Zurab Japaridze. Girchi opened its first office in Kutaisi (then-political capital of Georgia) on 5 November 2015 and officially founded as a political party on 16 April 2016. Within the first months of its creation, Girchi became one of the best-funded parties in Georgia, surpassing the fundraising numbers of even the ruling Georgian Dream party.
Parliamentary activities In March 2016, Japaridze proposed an amendment to the Military Obligation and Service Act that would have abolished conscription. However, the bill failed in the committees due to opposition by the ruling Georgian Dream party and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In March 2016, MP Goga Khachidze introduced a marijuana decriminalization bill. In May 2016, he additionally proposed a series of amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses and the Police Act that would ban the law enforcement's discretionary power to require drug testing. However, both bills failed in the committee hearings. Another legislation proposed in November 2016 would have repealed Article 45 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, effectively legalizing cannabis in Georgia, however, the bill was not considered before the convocation's term ended. The party's voted against a bill that increased the threshold for the Constitutional Court to issue rulings to two-thirds of the court instead of a simple majority.
2016 parliamentary election
To increase its political perspectives, Girchi joined forces during the 2016 parliamentary election with other centre-right parties, including New Georgia and New Rights, forming the New Choice coalition. That electoral bloc eventually joined the State for the People coalition, a well-financed bloc led by opera singer Paata Burchuladze, with Japaridze calling for "common ground" between pro-Western political parties. The SFP bloc's campaign platform was centred around promoting individual and economic liberties and a pro-Western foreign policy. Though Girchi had five of its nominees included in the bloc's electoral list it withdrew from the coalition two weeks before Election Day and removed its nominees from SFP's list after Japaridze accused the bloc of "blackmailing" the party. Despite abstaining from the 2016 election and losing its four MPs whose terms ended that year, Girchi vowed to stay active and fight for its ideology. Pavle Kublashvili, one of Girchi's founding MPs, left the party and politics shortly after the election.
2017 local elections
In 2017, the party proposed a nationwide referendum to be held at the same time as the 2017 local elections on narcotic decriminalization, though the proposal was rejected by the government. Later, the party made the decision to not take part in the local elections, protesting what it claimed were fraudulent submissions of party registration petition signatures by other political organizations. In an example of political activism, the party submitted 28,000 fake petition signatures, which the Central Election Commission claimed to have verified all in one day.
2018 presidential election
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