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June 15, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 4
Georgian PM resigns after failing to calm street protests
tycoon who is the richest man in the ex-Soviet republic.
Kvirikashvili’s last days in office were overshad- owed by big protests in Tbilisi over the trial of those suspected of killing two teenage boys in a brawl outside their school. The demonstrations gradually took the character of anti-government protests that called for the resignation of Kviri- kashvili’s administration. How much of a factor the protests were in Kvirikashvili’s resignation is unclear. His impending departure has been
a staple of Georgia’s political gossip since early 2017 but speculation intensified this spring when Ivanishvili announced his return to politics.
While not mentioning Ivanishvilli by name, Kviri- kashvili referred to “different opinions between me and the governing team” over the economic policy pursued by his government that surfaced at the previous day’s cabinet meeting. There had already been rumours that Kvirikashvili and four of his ministers were considering resignation.
“Also, I would like to emphasise that, especially
in recent months, there were a number of fun- damental issues in which I had different opinions and positions with the chairman of the party,” Kvirikashvili said in the televised address, accord- ing to a transcript posted on his Facebook page.
Ivanishvili, 62, resigned from the posts of PM and Georgian Dream party chairman in 2013, but observers claim he has continued to run the
country from the shadows. He made a political comeback in public in May, returning to his former post as party chairman.
His coalition won control of the government in October 2012 after defeating the party of ex- president Mikheil Saakashvili, leader of the 2003 Rose Revolution. The coalition later split, but after triumphing in a parliamentary election in 2016, Georgian Dream consolidated its grip on power.
After receiving the nomination as the party’s candidate for prime minister, Bakhtadze, 36, declared at a press briefing: "We will accomplish the historic choice of the Georgian people to be integrated into the Euro-Atlantic space."
Bakhtadze went on to pledge "fundamental and innovative reforms in every necessary direction” to create a new economic model “with fair play rules, which will apply to every family and every citizen", according to Georgia Today. Georgia’s re- forms are sputtering, according to some analysts.
Russia, which in 2008 fought a brief war between the two countries over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, will be wary of any strengthened pro-Nato and pro-European Union orientation from Tbilisi, but Russian-Georgian bilateral relations have been relatively steady in the past two years, and May brought reports of the two countries working on an agreement for three trade corridors.
Bakhtadze has been finance minister since November 2017 and before that was the head of Georgian Railways from March 2013. He needs to submit a cabinet list to President Giorgi Margvelashvili within seven days. The president then has seven days to submit the new cabinet to parliament for approval.