the GD coalition that saw the departure of the Free Democrats from the party and the resignation of Vice-Speaker Zurab Abashidze allowed Gubaz Sanikidze to succeed him on the post on 19 February 2015. However, as GD announced it would not run in a coalition in the 2016 parliamentary elections, Sanikidze and the NF left the coalition and announced it would run an independent electoral list on 4 April 2016, with Sanikidze holding the list's second spot. The NF failing to win any seats in Parliament, Sanikidze quit the party he helped found on 11 November. Return to the opposition Without a seat in Parliament and having left the NF, Gubaz Sanikidze became an unaffiliated political commentator, often appearing on media to criticize the government, while rejecting any cooperation with UNM, at the time the largest opposition party. On 11 June 2019, he became a co-founder of Victorious Georgia, a new political party set up by former controversial Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili, with the stated goal of continuing reforms that it claimed had been abandoned by Georgian Dream. Following Okruashvili's arrest a week later as one of the leaders of an anti-Russian protest that tried to enter the Parliament building, Sanikidze called him a political prisoner and stated that "[Bidzina] Ivanishvili has a mental disorder and takes direct orders from Vladimir Putin." Fourth term as MP Shortly before the 2020 parliamentary elections, Gubaz Sanikidze joined the Strength is in Unity (SIU) electoral coalition as a member of Victorious Georgia. SIU is a coalition of political parties led by UNM, a party he had been vocally opposed to throughout his political career. This move was heavily criticized by former National Security Council Secretary Giga Bokeria, who accused UNM of "betraying the values of the Rose Revolution". 16th on the party's electoral list, he won a seat in Parliament but refused to recognize it due to alleged massive electoral fraud and tried to formally resign. He soon became one of the most radical members of the opposition, publicly supporting the return of the exiled Mikheil Saakashvili to lead the opposition (this argument caused a physical confrontation between him and UNM Chairman Nika Melia on live television). A leaked phone call recording between Sanikidze and Temur Alasania, a wealthy businessman with close ties to the international arms trade and uncle of Saakashvili, revealed discussions over the proclamation of an "alternative government" and the