PM on Boycotting Opposition: It's Not Justified to Avoid Responsibility

Of course, from this standpoint, it is sincerely sad that seats of the opposition parties are vacant and empty in the plenary chamber of the parliament. It was announced by Giorgi Gakharia, Prime Minister of Georgia in his closing remarks made at the Plenary Session of the Parliament yesterday.

In his opinion, it is not justified in these challenging times for the country, health threats of our citizens, economic and regional hardship to place one’s party interests above those of the State.

“Sincerely, I do not think it is justified to avoid the responsibility, which the citizens assigned to the members of the supreme representation body of the country during elections. At the same time, I think it is immoral to refuse from the responsibility assigned by citizens and voters at times like these, while explaining it with the interests of the same citizens. Nevertheless, it is a sad reality of our current times. We presumably should understand that Georgia is a developing, transitional democracy and this is the political culture, which we unfortunately witness in the country. Real global challenges, which our citizens are coping with every single day are associated with their health, jobs, social security, our IDPs. It is all very real nowadays.  Disagreement between us from the responsibility viewpoint should be put aside no matter how much we disagree with each other and dislike each other. Today the country is facing such global challenges, which were conceptualized by our voters better than us and gave a task to all of us to make the parliament the way it is. Nine political parties should be represented in this convocation of the parliament. Concrete opposition parties and specific MPs should be present here.  Voters have instructed us to work together for getting the country out of the calamity and for returning to the starting position, which we had and then ensure a much quicker development and advancement to make sure that unemployment and poverty get combatted, problems caused by the occupation get addressed, reach a long-time dream of the country and become a fully-fledged member of the European family. I am confident that reason will prevail and I am sure that we will succeed in working together against the challenges in the best interests of our citizens. We all understand it well that our routine work is aimed at protecting jobs, health and social security of each citizen by making specific steps, inter alia by protecting the interests of our IDPS. Irrespective of this hope, we bear the responsibility to be ready for the development of events under any scenario. It means that we may end up assuming a double responsibility and thus each MP, as well as each Member of the Government, should be prepared for this. I wish to thank you for your attention, concentrated listening to the Government Program and hereby wish you Happy New Year, thereby hoping that we will all manage to work together in the best interests of our State and our citizens no matter of the controversy among us,” concluded Giorgi Gakharia.