President Giorgi Margvelashvili is holding consultations with senior local legislators in Adjara Autonomous Republic on July 14 to pick a nominee for head of local government of this region on Georgia’s Black Sea coast.
Archil Khabadze, head of the Adjara Autonomous Republic’s government, filed resignation on July 6, three months before the elections.
Nominating Georgia’s ambassador to Kazakhstan, Zurab Pataradze, to replace Khabadze is being considered during ongoing consultations in Adjara, the President’s office said.
According to the law the President has to nominate new head of the local government in Adjara after consultations with political groups in the local legislative body, Supreme Council; the President can only name a candidate if the nomination has the support of the central government.
A candidate, nominated by the President, will then require confirmation by Adjara’s 21- Supreme Council.
Election of local legislative body in Adjara, Supreme Council, will be held simultaneously with the parliamentary elections on October 8.
Zurab Pataradze, 43, native of Batumi, worked at anti-organized crime unit of Adjara Autonomous Republic’s interior ministry before joining the Foreign Ministry in 2000.
He was a second secretary at the Georgian embassy in Moscow in charge of consular service since 2004 and after Georgia and Russia cut diplomatic ties, Pataradze served as a consular at the Georgian interests section at the Swiss embassy in Moscow till 2009.
Pataradze then served as Georgia’s consul general in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki and was ambassador to Turkey from 2012, before becoming ambassador to Kazakhstan in mid-2013.
