Due to the “management crisis” the government was on the verge of dissolution

The almost simultaneous resignation of two Georgian ministers - environmental protection and sports affairs - made a vote on a vote of confidence in the government of Irakli Garibashvili inevitable. The ruling Georgian Dream (GM) coalition assured Kommersant that there would be no problems during the voting. The opposition regarded the current situation as further evidence that the current authorities are “dragging the country into the abyss.” Georgian experts call what is happening a “management crisis.”

Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili
Photo: Vano Shamanidze, Kommersant / buy photo

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili was forced yesterday to appeal to parliament for a vote of confidence in connection with the mass voluntary resignations of heads of government departments. Yesterday, Minister of Sports Affairs Levan Kipiani announced his resignation from his post: he explained that he does not want and cannot resist members of the parliamentary committee on sports affairs who accused him of the collapse of the sports movement. A day earlier, the Minister of Environmental Protection, Elguja Khokrishvili, resigned: the official, whose family lives in Germany, was accused of “working as a limiter in Georgia” and often flying to Berlin at public expense. And on April 21, Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development David Shavliashvili left. The official reason was his state of health. But on the sidelines of power they claimed that he had lost the favor of the founder of GM, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who in Georgia is considered the informal leader of the government.

In addition, at various times, the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense, Alexander Chikaidze, Maya Panjikidze, Irakli Alasania, as well as State Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Alexy Petriashvili, left the original cabinet formed in November 2013. The Georgian media have already dubbed what is happening in the country a ministerial fall.

According to the constitution, after the change of a third of the government (that is, seven ministers out of 20, taking into account Prime Minister Garibashvili), the current cabinet must receive a vote of confidence in parliament. The leader of the parliamentary majority, David Saganelidze, said that this issue could be put to a vote “as early as Saturday or Sunday.” According to him, this is necessary so that “the country meets the conference of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (it will be held in Tbilisi in mid-May - Kommersant ) with a stable working government.” One of the leaders of the GM, Levan Berdzenishvili, assured Kommersant that there would be no problems during the voting.

Nevertheless, Georgian political scientist Georgy Khukhashvili told Kommersant that we are talking about a serious “managerial crisis.” “It’s very frivolous when a young minister, full of strength and health (David Shavliashvili - Kommersant ), refers to illness, and the second (Elgudzha Khokrishvili - Kommersant ) says that he is leaving because he misses his family,” noted expert. At the same time, he refuted the opinion that Bidzina Ivanishvili was involved in the high-profile resignations: “It is very profitable for irresponsible and incompetent officials who have failed in everything both in foreign policy and in the economy to blame everything on Ivanishvili.”

The opposition in Georgia regarded the resignations of ministers as proof that the current authorities are “most likely dragging the country into the abyss.” One of the leaders of the United National Movement, deputy David Darchiashvili, told Kommersant about this. “You can call it a management crisis, governmental or political. The essence does not change,” he believes. “Recent events have revealed a crisis in the brains of the current rulers of Georgia. They have a chaos of values, incomprehensible or unattainable goals, and sometimes they act like a swan, a crayfish and a pike.”

Georgiy Dvali, Tbilisi

Georgia fell under ministerial fall