Ivanishvili, GD to Keep Figureheads Unchanged
Bidzina Ivanishvili, the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party’s Honorary Chairman, wants Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze to remain in office. The party’s political council, which met today, November 21, as expected, “fully supported” Ivanishvili’s nominee, Mamuka Mdinaradze, the party’s executive secretary, said at a briefing after the political council meeting.
According to the GD statute, which was updated in January this year after Bidzina Ivanishvili’s third official return to power, his powers as Honorary Chair of the party included the nomination of the Prime Minister of Georgia.
Mdinaradze also announced that the GD faction would nominate incumbent Shalva Papuashvili for the post of Parliament Speaker. He has held the post since 2021.
In addition, Mdinaradze said that after the first session, the Parliament will set the date for the election of Georgia’s sixth President. Earlier, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said the country’s sixth President would be elected in early January, 2025. The term of incumbent Salome Zurabishvili ends in December. She is the last President elected by popular vote. Georgia’s sixth president will be elected by a 300-member electoral college composed of representatives of the Georgian Parliament, the autonomous republics of Abkhazia and Adjara, and local authorities.
The ruling party appears to be turning a blind eye to the constitutional complaints filed by President Salome Zurabishvili and 30 opposition members of the outgoing parliament, who are challenging the constitutionality of the October 26 elections and thus the legality of the election of all 150 MPs. The party plans to go ahead and hold the first session of Parliament on November 25, next Monday, despite the fact that the constitutional complaints over the elections should put a legal hold the formation of a new Parliament. The GD is also expected to sit alone in a new Parliament, as the opposition forces, which consider the elections rigged, have vowed not to enter and not to legitimize it.
Mdinaradze claimed that there are no legal norms in the Georgian legal system that would prevent the convening of Parliament.
Also Read:
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