December Politics - Swearing, Potential Resignations and Re-shuffling
Op-Ed
December is always distinguished by very active politics. Usually, we witness such events that highly influence future political processes. It would seem that this December is an exception. Firstly, the rumors about the alleged resignation of the Catholicos Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II; and now we’re seeing the potential resignation of Georgian Prime Minister Kvirikashvili. The incident that took place in Parliament during the meeting with oppositional minorities exceeded anything we thought possible. The PM publicly swore at one of the MPs, thus further strengthening the typical political “sacredness” of December.
Whether Kvirikashvili will really resign this month is hard to foretell, but we can say confidently that the Georgian Dream won’t let the debauchee stay for long. Especially considering the fact that Kvirikashvili’s predecessor, Garibashvili, also resigned in December. In the case of Kvirikashvili, this would be easier, because he is “inappropriate for the position.” And that’s it. It is truly hard to watch how the Prime Minister ends his speech about the governmental program whilst swearing. It seems that he has had red lights in front of him for quite some time now, and consequently lost his temper.
Candidates who could replace Kvirikashvili are rumored to be Giorgi Gakharia, the Minister of Interior Affairs or Mamuka Bakhtadze, the Minister of Finance. Although Gakharia seems more competent, Bakhtadze is a friend of Bera, the billionaire’s son. So only in the Sololaki HQ do they know who will be chosen as a replacement.
Meanwhile, the ruling party and the Prime Minister are making mistake after mistake, which indicates that [Georgia] is truly ruled by a very weak government. Whether the Georgian Dream can be destroyed just as easily is hard to say, but the local scandal about the state procurements has become the reason for quite a fuss in the party, and the government in general. Giorgi Gachechiladze had a comical pretension: “My son-in-law is a young man, he is creating his business now and needs support from the state budget” he said. This was followed by the “resignation threat” from Kvirikashvili, and the division of the governmental party into factions. To put it simply, we witnessed that a person who should be the guarantee of the country’s stability by constitution, and the party which also should be the guarantee for the county’s development, depend on the statements made by Grechikha.
What would the people, who closely observe the ongoing political processes, think after this statement? Was the Prime Minister scared by the hassle in the media? Or was it the criticism of the parliamentary minority that frightened him? The latter doesn’t have any power, because of being a minority in the Parliament. It is probably Kvirikashvili who never was and never will become a political figure of such a level, who could be remembered in history. As the opposition used to say, he was an ordinary bank clerk and it didn’t matter whether worked in Cartu Bank, TBC or Bank of Georgia.
Therefore, wherever he might have been, Kvirikashvili would have lost political support from the government, as it happened in Garibashvili’s case. “He wasn’t a good guy after all” – would be the highest evaluation we will hear from the most objective and unbiased experts after he leaves. Politics is a completely different field, not subject to classic mathematical calculations. Every government should know that history always was, is and will be made up by the rebelling minorities and not the ambivalent majorities. In Georgia, this is worse than a plain mistake.
By Zaza Jgarkava