President Comments on Cabinet Reshuffle
President Giorgi Margvelashvili said that he will submit new cabinet to the Parliament for confidence vote without delay as soon as all the members of the reshuffled government are nominated.
PM Irakli Garibashvili announced about cabinet reshuffle on July 21, affecting seven government members with two of them switching to other cabinet posts and other five losing seats in the cabinet.
These changes will require for the entire cabinet to win confidence vote from the Parliament as one-third of ministers have been replaced since it last time won confidence vote from the legislative body in November, 2013.
After the PM names new ministerial nominations, President Giorgi Margvelashvili will submit the reshuffled cabinet for approval to the Parliament within seven days; the Parliament will have to consider the reshuffled cabinet and vote within following seven days.
The President’s role in this process is nominal and he has to simply submit to the Parliament for consideration those nominees, which will be picked by the PM. President’s role, according to the constitution, increases in case the parliament rejects to give confidence vote to the reshuffled cabinet. Confirmation of the reshuffled cabinet, which requires more than half of the parliament members’ votes, is not likely to face any hurdles in the 150-seat legislative body, where ruling GD coalition holds 84 seats.
“As soon as I have a list of new ministers, I will not delay this procedure [to submit it to the Parliament],” President Margvelashvili told journalists. “It is my function to ask the Parliament whether it trusts this governmental team or not.”
He also noted that a session of the National Security Council (NSC), which was planned for this week to discuss upcoming NATO summit in Wales, will now be postponed for a later date. Margvelashvili said he will not convene NSC this week in order not to “overload our respectful ministers, who should appear before the Parliament” for hearings.
It will be the first NSC session under President Margvelashvili. The role of the NSC, which is chaired by the President whose authorities have been significantly downsized by the constitution that went into force last November, was sidelined by the security and crisis management council, which was established late last year and which is chaired by the Prime Minister.
President Margvelashvili decided to convene NSC session to discuss NATO summit in Wales in September, which the President will be attending; the Alliance is not expected to extend its membership action plan (MAP) to Georgia at the summit.
Prison system minister Sozar Subari has been named for the post of the minister for internally displaced persons and accommodation, replacing Davit Darakhvelidze.
Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development Elguja Khokrishvili, who was appointed on this post in April, will become the Minister of Environment Protection, replacing Khatuna Gogaladze.
Other ministers who have lost posts in the cabinet along with Darakhvelidze and Gogaladze, are: Agriculture Minister Shalva Pipia; Minister of Culture Guram Odisharia and State Minister for Diaspora Konstantine Surguladze.