Alliance of Patriots Unleashes Criticism of Some Ministerial Candidates

The Alliance of Patriots, a nativist and Euro-skeptic party  which won six MP seats in the newly elected Parliament, did not support the cabinet during November 25 hearing in the Parliament. The Alliance leaders said they can not support some of the proposed cabinet members. 

Irma Inashvili, Parliament’s vice speaker from Alliance of Patriots, unleashed severe criticism against the proposed Minister of Culture Mikheil Giorgadze, the Minister for Environment Gigla Agulashvili, the Minister for Infrastructure Zurab Alavidze and the Finance Minister Dimitri Kumsishvili.

MP Inashvili said the Alliance of Patriots will not support Mikheil Giorgadze, since he “allowed destruction” of Sakdrisi prehistoric gold mining site by signing the decision to remove this monument from the list of protected heritage. The decision was followed by another one in March, 2014 which gave the current mining company RMG a permission to launch open-cast mining at the area.

“You cannot feel this responsibility,” Inashvili told Giorgadze. “But a day will come, when you will be held accountable for the destruction of Sakdrisi and when you end up in jail, you will have a lot of time to think whether your behavior was correct .” 

She also slammed a former Republican MP, Gigla Agulashvili as “a co-participant of rigging” MP by-elections in Sagarejo district. Inashvili ran against the Republican Tamar Khidasheli, and alleges Agulashvili was actively involved in the campaign against her. “I promise you that you will be held accountable,” Inashvili told Agulashvili at the hearing.

She also accused future Infrastructure Minister Zurab Alavidze of telling “a lie” after he denied that he had donated money to the United National Movement (UNM). Alavidze, who served as Deputy Economy Minister from September 2009 to June 2010, donated in July 2012 GEL 35 000 to then ruling UNM. 

Another ministerial candidate Mr. Kumsishvili was accused by MP Inashvili of being is behind “the black PR” against the Alliance of Patriots in the media during the campaign.

Several ministerial candidates did deserve praise from the Alliance, among them were the Minister in Charge of Penitentiary system Kakha Kakhishvili and Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani.

During the hearing the Alliance of Patriots also called on the Interior Minister to intensify fight against cyber crimes. “When I am threatened, this is a usual crime, no matter whether I am threatened in the street or on the Internet,” Inashvili said. “Regretfully, a part of the society understands human rights protection as protection of sexual minorities," Inashvili quipped, "but when human dignity is violated, this also means violation of human rights.”

In response, the candidate for the position of the Minister of Interior (who will keep his post) Giorgi Mgebrishvili said that he is ready “to actively cooperate and improve legislation.” 

Inashvili said that Alliance of Patriots will offer a legislative initiative to make cyber crimes "equivalent to other crimes." A separate chapter in the Georgian criminal code is currently dedicated to cyber crime. 

Emzar Kvitsiani of the Alliance of Patriots also spoke. He is a controversial figure, who was sentenced to 12 years in jail for forming illegal armed group and mutiny and released in January 2015 through a plea bargain with the prosecution. Kvitsiani called for abolition of the legislation on occupied territories that punishes entry into Abkhazia or South Ossetia from elsewhere but Georgia proper. Kvitsiani said Georgians living in Russia should be able to enter the breakaway regions freely from the Russian territory – meaning through what Russia sees as the ’state border’. 

“You tried to do it [earlier], but the UNM prevented you from doing this," Kvitsiani told the Georgian Dream minsiterial candidates.

In response to the calls for intensifying efforts for conflict resolution, Kvirikashvili said that the government “has a number of interesting initiatives” in order “to restore trust between Abkhazians and Georgians, Ossetians and Georgians and to take important steps for unification of our country.”  

“The only thing, which we cannot do, is that we will never compromise in terms of territorial integrity and sovereignty,” he said. “We cannot tolerate those steps, which are taken by Russia in respect of these territories, but regretfully, except our diplomatic steps and our economic development plan, we do not have other weapons and we should never use them in future.” 

“We should take more courageous steps,” he continued. “I am not going to continue those routine activities, which we were doing previously – this is my message today.”