The reason there is discussion about a primary for the Tbilisi mayors race has to do with the election system.  The government's decision not to have a 50% threshold has created this need.

I have no idea of the numbers but lets say a third of Tbilisi voters will vote for the government candidate, a third will somehow vote against the government candidate and a third are neutral and will vote for who they think is best at the time of the election, government or otherwise.

With a fifty percent threshold people could vote for whomever they wanted to, and they would know that most likely there would be a runoff between the government candidate and some other candidate.  But since there is no fifty percent barrier, the opposition will be split, some of the neutral third will go for the opposition and others for the government.  The lack of a real fifty percent barrier in effect disenfranchised the neutral third; polarizing the election.

This makes it much more likely that the government will win, even with a minority of votes.  Theoretically, the government candidate could become mayor with 31% even if 69% voted against the government.  This would be a very dangerous outcome for Georgia.  But if these primaries work and there is a consensus opposition candidate then some will vote for that candidate, some for the government and the neutral third might still decide the outcome of the race.

Unfortunately, under the current system, voters have only a very crude way to express their opinions; they can only pick one candidate.  In a preferential voting system voters can rank candidates and the consensus candidate wins instead of people being forced to decide who they dislike the least.

The government has helped itself in many ways by preventing a real fifty percent barrier and therefore making the various opposition parties try to organize a primary.  It appeals to all the worst instincts of the opposition groups.  They are trying to decide who gets a seat at the table with endless petty discussions about the parties of people with very few followers and how they relate to each other.  Voters find this pointless and annoying.  Simply organizing any act of voting is difficult, and the various opposition groups have not so far shown a talent for planning and execution.  And of course if it is an open primary, then government supporters could join and vote for spoiler candidates.  The process spotlights the worst aspects of Georgian politics.

The politics of Georgia aren't so bad because politics are bad or because Georgia innately has this problem.  They are bad because the system makes them that way.  The political process is like any activity; it is what its system makes it.  But the system will never be improved at the same it is being stressed by competition.  So this time let's use the year after the election to improve the election system when the lessons are fresh, rather than the year before an election when it is impossible.

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