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. 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. 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. 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. He briefly served a third term in Parliament in 2008, resigning his seat two weeks after being elected.
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.
Personal life and education
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.
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.
Political career
In the Supreme Council
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.
Second term as MP
After the Georgian Civil War, Gubaz Sanikidze returned to politics, becoming the Vice-Chairman of UGT in 1995. 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. 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.