
Saakashvili Offers Cabinet Posts to Parliamentary Minority
President Saakashvili said that he was still ready to offer posts in the government to “opposition parties in Parliament.”
Saakashvili first offered government posts to the opposition in January after being elected to a second presidential term. “This proposal still remains in force,” Saakashvili said on October 30 during a visit to Sweden.
“If the opposition parties in Parliament say that they are ready to join the government, we are ready to review cabinet composition and let their members into the government,” he said.
Saakashvili also said that regardless of whether the opposition agrees or not, “we will still work together with them on democratic reforms in a parliamentary format.”
“We are ready to share responsibility for the development of the country within the next few years and form a government of national unity,” he added.
Saakashvili also said that senior officials who had been summoned by the parliamentary ad hoc commission studying the August war had been asked “tough questions.” He also said that the commission was chaired by a lawmaker from the parliamentary minority and the commission hearings were televised live. “This is a demonstration of democracy,” Saakashvili said.
He also stressed that Prime Minister-designate Grigol Mgaloblishvili had been right not to radically revamp the cabinet. All key ministers have retained their posts in the cabinet, which is expected to win a parliamentary confidence vote on Saturday.
“He asked for some probationary time for cabinet members and to make conclusions after that period,” Saakashvili said. “I think that he was right not to dismiss the entire cabinet from the very beginning, because he is a newcomer and he has to see who [which member of the cabinet] is appropriate and who is not.”
Mgaloblishvili, a thirty-five-year-old diplomat, who is a newcomer to politics, said earlier on October 30 that he had asked the president to give him the chance of working with the current members of the cabinet before making any radical changes. On October 29 he said that he was not planning to make any radical changes in the cabinet, because it had successfully met the major challenges during the August war.
Meanwhile, parliamentary minority members, in particular lawmakers from the Christian-Democratic Party, said on October 30 that they would not support the cabinet changes at this point, citing ongoing hearings in the war commission.
Lawmakers from the parliamentary minority met minister-designates on October 30. It was the first time in years when almost the entire cabinet, including Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili, met representatives of the parliamentary minority.
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