Newly elected Parliament holds its inaugural session on October 21 in newly built chamber in Georgia’s second largest city of Kutaisi.

At the inaugural session lawmakers will listen to President Saakashvili’s address, will fill parliamentary posts and form factions.

Parliamentary majority, consisting of Georgian Dream bloc, will be made up of three factions; the largest one will be formed by members from Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party; second one will unite members from Our Georgia-Free Democrats, party led by nominee for defense minister Irakli Alasania; the third faction will unite members of the Republican Party, whose leader Davit Usupashvili is slated to become new parliamentary chairman.

Representatives of six other parties have also become lawmakers under the Georgian Dream’s party-list. These are: National Forum; Conservative Party; Industrialists (these three parties are members of the Georgian Dream coalition together with Ivanishvili’s party, Republican Party and OGFD), as well as one representative from each of the following three small parties: Greens Party; Social-Democrats and Party of People.

Parliamentary minority group, consisting of the United National Movement (UNM) representatives, will also have three factions – one mainly uniting MPs elected through party-list and two others uniting majoritarian MPs.

Parliamentary faction is a group of at least six MPs, which gives certain political privileges to its members, involving a seat and right to vote in the parliament’s bureau (the body which determines the parliamentary sessions’ agenda), guaranteed seats in committees, investigation commissions and parliamentary delegations, as well as allocation of more time during the debates and discussions in the Parliament.

But before filling parliamentary posts, the new Parliament should confirm credentials of its newly elected members. There have been reports that the Georgian Dream may try to block confirmation of credentials of at least one UNM member – Roland Akhalaia, whose victory in a majoritarian race against Irakli Alasania in Zugdidi single-mandate constituency has been disputed by the Georgian Dream.