Garibashvili to Name New Ministers on Friday
PM Irakli Garibashvili will name “new ministerial candidates” on Friday morning instead of initially planned Thursday, his office said.
Garibashvili, whose government will face confidence vote in the Parliament after resignations of several ministers, said on Wednesday that there will be no changes in his cabinet except of those two ministers who have stepped down on April 28 and on April 29.
Environment Minister Elguja Khokrishvili resigned on April 28 and Minister of Sport Levan Kipiani stepped down on April 29. Last week Infrastructure Minister Davit Shavliashvili was replaced by Nodar Javakhishvili. As a result of these resignations number of cabinet members, replaced since it last time won the confidence vote in July 2014, reached seven, prompting the need for new confidence vote.
Garibashvili told journalists earlier on April 30 that he was planning to name new ministers Thursday afternoon, but his office released a brief announcement later on the same day sayi8ng that the event was rescheduled for 10am local time on May 1.
“Consultations [on ministerial nominees] are still ongoing with the Georgian Dream [ruling] coalition,” PM’s office said.
Although Garibashvili ruled out major reshuffle in the cabinet, some Georgian Dream lawmakers, among them MPs from Republican Party Tina Khidasheli and Levan Berdzenishvili, did not exclude possibility of change of more than two ministers.
