[16][17] The origins of Girchi date back to May 2015 when four members of Parliament, Zurab Japaridze, Goga Khachidze, Pavle Kublashvili, and Giorgi Meladze, left the opposition United National Movement party to establish a "new political centre".

[3][18] Japaridze (who until his departure served as the Executive Secretary of UNM) criticized the party for "failing to renew itself", hinting at the continued influence of former President Mikheil Saakashvili in the organization's internal affairs.

[23] In May 2016, he additionally proposed a series of amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses and the Police Act that would ban the law enforcement's discretionary power to require drug testing.

[24] Another legislation proposed in November 2016 would have repealed Article 45 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, effectively legalizing cannabis in Georgia, however, the bill was not considered before the convocation's term ended.

[26] To increase its political perspectives, Girchi joined forces during the 2016 parliamentary election with other centre-right parties, including New Georgia and New Rights, forming the New Choice coalition.

His campaign pledges included doubling defense spending by 2024 while abolishing military conscription, pardoning people serving drug-related prison sentences, streaming ministerial meetings on social media platforms, and vetoing "every bill that limits freedom".

[37] In the post-electoral State Audit of party financing, Girchi refused to submit its records, arguing that Georgian Dream had violated electoral law by clearing the private debt of hundreds of thousands of voters days before the election.

[44][45][46] Girchi led a campaign to convince other opposition parties to sign various libertarian pledges, including economic, judicial, educational, land, and law enforcement reforms.

[47] The party engaged in other forms of activism such as unsuccessfully challenging gender-based electoral quotas in the Constitutional Court and pledging to give away Tesla cars to its voters.

[60] The proposal was originally brushed off by most opposition parties however a similar deal was eventually reached, negotiated by European Council President Charles Michel, whose first signatory was Girchi.

[70] They have additionally proposed a bill that would allow retired veterans as well as law enforcement officers to own firearms and legislation that would give property tax exemption for those earning less than 70,000 GEL a year.

[73] In 2022, it was one of few parties to agree to join legislative groups set up to work on reforms in line with the European Commission's recommendations, however, they criticized Georgia Dream's decision to exclude some non-governmental organizations from the process.

[74][75] On August 4, 2022, it co-authored a declaration with the Citizens party, calling for the withdrawal of Mikheil Saakashvili from politics and the return of GD's Bidzina Ivanishvili as Prime Minister.

[80] In April, Vakhtang Megrelishvili, as a part of a parliamentary delegation, traveled to Ukraine and visited a site of mass murder of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war in Bucha shortly after the massacre had taken place.

[85][86] Girchi has praised the president Salome Zourabichvili's initiative 'Georgian Charter' for attempting to bring opposition together, nevertheless, they criticized her for not taking their opinions into consideration and refused to sign it.

In 2017, the then-party attorney Iago Khvichia represented the plaintiff in the landmark Givi Shanidze v. Parliament of Georgia case which led the Constitutional Court to decriminalize cannabis.

[citation needed] During the 2016 legislative elections, the party called for a reduction in public spending from 8 to 4.5 billion GEL and pledged to abolish all welfare programs for working-age capable individuals.

[9] It has championed various social causes like drug liberalization, sex work legalization, gun rights, abolition of military conscription, marriage equality, and full freedom of speech.

[156][157] Party chairman Iago Khvichia has said that firearms are generally "used for self-defense rather than committing crimes" and that "all mentally healthy people in the country [should] have the right to bear arms".

[125][158] The party has pushed for allowing veterans and retired law enforcement to own and carry weapons, saying a better-armed citizenry is a necessity in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[168] Girchi has repeatedly spoken out against Article 157 of the Criminal Code of Georgia that bans the "acquisition, storage, and distribution of material depicting the private life of people".

[citation needed] The issue was already a major topic of discussion when the party was founded in 2016,[173] with its leaders calling conscription a source of corruption and extortion, as well as a violation of human rights.

[175] The party planned to sue the Georgian government at the European Court of Human Rights over a law creating imprisonment sentencing guidelines for individuals evading conscription,[176] calling the system "slavery".

[125] Girchi supports the continuation of non-recognition policy on Abkhazia and South Ossetia and has criticized the government's lack of will to fight "more actively" on the international front to contain Russia.

[citation needed] When South Ossetia considered requesting annexation by Russia in 2022, Iago Khvichia said that Tbilisi's response should be "genuine Western integration".

[191][192] Nevertheless, MP Alexandre Rakviashvili has also condemned statements by Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov suggesting that Georgia should "open a second front" against Russia.

[195] Its preamble describes the party’s worldview as such: The world given to us in its countless colors belongs to us, human beings, and it is we who have the responsibility to find an order in which we can live freely and protect each other from aggressors.

[203] In December 2022, Prime Minister Gharibashvili warned about a crackdown on "despicable and blasphemous religious organizations",[204] directly pointing at the Biblical Freedom Church, and subsequently announced a planned reform of the Defense Code that would address Girchi's loophole.

[212] Upon its creation in 2015, Girchi included four members of Parliament who had previously been elected under the UNM ticket, Zurab Japaridze, Pavle Kublashvili, Goga Khachidze, and Giorgi Meladze.

[citation needed] The latter’s mandate was revoked in May 2021 in protest of the gender-based electoral quotas that had required one-quarter of the party's candidates to be women and was replaced by Alexandre Rakviashvili.