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. Following the Rose Revolution, Gubaz Sanikidze became a short-lived chairman of the UGT parliamentary faction (which lost representation in April 2004). During the first months of the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, he was one of the first opponents of the popular pro-Western government, criticizing the distribution of powers between Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze and the alleged government pressure on independent political talk shows on television. During the Adjara crisis that saw the overthrow of Aslan Abashidze, he accused the central government of "aggravating the situation." In opposition to Saakashvili On 15 December 2006, Gubaz Sanikidze was one of the veteran political figures to create the National Forum (NF), an opposition political party chaired by diplomat Kakha Shartava. As such, he sat on the party's Political Council and