Editor: last update July 4, 1996; europe; index

Zurab Zvania

November 25, 1995, Saturday, BC cycle

LENGTH: 191 words

HEADLINE: Shevardnadze protege named parliament head

DATELINE: TBILISI, Georgia

BODY:
Georgia's new parliament, meeting for the first time Saturday, named a close ally of President Eduard Shevardnadze as its chairman.

Zurab Zvania, leader of the Greens party which is in a coalition with Shevardnadze's Citizens Union ruling bloc, was approved by a vote of 186 to 27.

Zvania, 32, would assume Shevardnadze's wide presidential powers if the leader fell ill or died in office until a new vote could be held.

Shevardnadze will be officially sworn in as president of the mountainous republic of five million in a lavish ceremony Sunday featuring a military band and a cannon salute.

Earlier this month he was chosen overwhelmingly by his country men, garnering almost 75 percent of the vote just weeks after narrowly escaping an assasination attempt.

The former Soviet foreign minister's Citizens Union controls parliament and is expected to approve his plans for continuing economic reforms and attempts to negotiate an end to two separatist conflicts plaguing the country.

Georgia is emerging from economic collapse and civil and ethnic strife that has gripped it since it won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

November 25, 1995, Saturday

LENGTH: 407 words

HEADLINE: Georgian Parliament speaker seeks to revive parliamentarism

BYLINE: By Tengiz Pachkoriya and Tomas Chagelisvili

DATELINE: Tbilisi, November 25 1995

BODY: Georgian Parliament speaker Zurab Zvania said the major task of a new legislature is to maintain and develop the traditions of parliamentarism.

Zvania said he regards a parliament not as an arena of poitical confrontation, but as a forum for constructive discussions in order to find decisions needed by the repunblic.

He stresses that he will seek to develop constructive relations with the opposition. To this end, he will have consultations with all factions to discuss the structure of the supreme legislative body and other organisational questions.

Twelve political parties and movements have their representatives in a new parliament. The Union of Georgia's citizens, a public and political organisation supporting Georgian leader Edvard Shevardnadze, the National Democratic Party and the All-Georgian Union of Revival have the largest number of seats.

Zvania was elected the speaker of Georgia's new parliament at it's first session today.

Zvania, 32, is the general secretary of the Union of Georgia's Citizens. His candidature was supported by 156 out of 193 deputies who attended the session.

Zvania was born in Tbilisi in 1963. In November 1993, Zvania became the general secretary of the Union of Georgia's Citizens. In October 1992 he was elected to the parliament. In 1990, he was elected head of Georgia's Green Party. In 1988, Zvania gets actively engaged in politics and becomes the leader of Georgia's Green movement.

Zvania has graduated from the department of biology of Tbilisi State University.

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