United National Movement

The United National Movement (UNM; Georgian: ერთიანი ნაციონალური მოძრაობა, romanized: ertiani natsionaluri modzraoba), is a liberal-conservative political party in Georgia. Tina Bokuchava serves as the party's chairman, while its honorary chairman Mikheil Saakashvili is considered the de facto leader. The UNM's electoral number is 5.

The UNM was founded by Saakashvili in 2001, in opposition to Eduard Shevardnadze's government, rising to power following the Rose Revolution in 2003. During its nine-year rule, the UNM implemented several major reforms. The government focused on rooting out corruption and crime, establishing a free market economy, pursuing a pro-Western foreign policy, and regaining territorial integrity. The latter two put it in direct conflict with Russia exploding into a full-on war in 2008 that resulted in 20% of Georgia's territory being occupied by Russia to this day.

During its second term, accusations mounted over the UNM's alleged authoritarian tendencies with its detractors highlighting poor prison conditions, violent protest dispersals, and media and business intimidation as issues. This culminated in the Gldani prison scandal with several videos being released showing prison guards torturing, taunting, and sexually assaulting detainees. The UNM subsequently lost the 2012 parliamentary election to Georgian Dream. It has since served as the main opposition party frequently criticizing the government for what it sees as its pro-Russia policies.

Since 2025, the party has been undergoing a trial in the Constitutional Court of Georgia, which could possibly lead to outlawing of the party. The party supports Georgia's accession process to the European Union and NATO.

Mikheil Saakashvili, the founder of United National Movement (UNM), had his start in the political party Union of Citizens of Georgia (UCG) of the president Eduard Shevardnadze. He was elected to the parliament in 1995 soon joining the team of so-called "young reformers" within the party led by Zurab Zhvania.

By the late 90s, a rift was also growing between the "young reformers" and the establishment factions in CUG. The division was intensified following the 2000 presidential election. Saakashvili, who at the same time had served as the country’s justice minister, left CUG and established the opposition National Movement party, the predecessor to UNM. Zhvania, along with another prominent member of the "young reformers" team Nino Burjanadze also split in 2002 creating the United Democrats party.

At the same time, the government’s popularity drastically decreased being attributed to its inability to exert territorial control over the country, weak economic growth, and lack of development of public infrastructure. The 2002 local elections marked a turning point for CUG where it achieved a crushing defeat getting less than 2% in Tbilisi Sakrebulo. National Movement led by Saakashvili got a quarter of the votes in the election with him being elected the chairman of the Sakrebulo.

Despite the elections held under CUG’s rule being generally viewed as irregular, the scale of the fraud was described as not being enough to change the outcome of an election. This changed in 2003 parliamentary election which was widely viewed as fraudulent. Parallel voting tabulations had shown an overwhelming opposition victory despite the official results claiming otherwise. In the official results, National Movement achieved 18,74% of the vote winning 42 seats.