Margvelashvili Again Reluctant to Follow GD Politics

“I am the President elected by the population of Georgia who swore an oath to this nation and not to Georgian Dream,”stated President Giorgi Margvelashvili in response to Prime Minister Garibashvili’s speech on the President’s ‘affiliation’ to the United National Movement.

The president says the foundation of all his speeches, vetoes and political views is Georgian Dream’s election program of 2012-2013. Margvelashvili emphasizes that he has never neglected the election program of GD, but notably refrained from commenting whether or not the whole coalition is following the same path.

“When I see that a bill – any bill - is against the country’s fundamental interests, I will not be afraid or keep my mouth shut, because we are on the same team. I will speak the truth despite the fact that this action will inevitably be followed by political campaigns - because I believe it is right for Georgia,” the Georgian President noted.

Looking back to the recent past, after the 2013 presidential elections, Giorgi Margvelashvili, who was widely supported by the Georgian Dream coalition and personally Bidzina Ivanishvili, soon became an aberrant political figure to his own team. The former university rector not only entered the GD-hated presidential palace, but also blocked a number of GD legislative proposals, including one about the media. Moreover, he accused Ivanishvili of ruling from the backstage after the former PM showed his dissatisfaction towards the president.

It was Margvelashvili who, unlike some of his team members, openly named the Russian Federation an occupant country and called for pragmatic and rational politics while different high-ranking politicians played their appeasement politics with Russia. There were many endeavors from the government to cut some real tools from the president’s institution, from which one was creating an alternative structure of Crisis Management Council besides the President-led National Security Council.

Currently, the issues against the President concern the National Bank (NBG) and the pardoning of UNM Kako Bobokhidze’s brother from prison, for which Garibashvili called Margvelashvili a ‘truly national president’. Yet the decisions of the president were also supported by the public and civil society who believed that vetoing the proposal on the NBG was right and pardoning said prisoner met justice standards.

Steven Jones