In March 2004, he was elected to the Parliament of Georgia from Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movementparty list and has since been a member of a Parliamentary Committee for Education, Science, Culture and Sports. In July 2004, Eduard Kokoity, the leader of Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia, accused Gutsaev of having offered him 20 million USD in exchange of his "loyalty" to the Georgian government. Gutsaev dismissed Kokoity's claims as an attempt to "garner political points" and said that his only mission to Kokoity was to persuade him to allow a South Ossetian football team to take part in the Georgian national championship.[1]