Kobakhidze Talks Local Elections, Slams “Agents,” Revisits Past, Defends Arrests
Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze appeared on the pro-government Rustavi 2 channel on April 16, addressing a wide range of issues, including the upcoming local elections in October and the ruling party’s plan to ban the opposition; former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia; the GD parliament’s temporary investigative commission probing alleged crimes by the United National Movement, with a focus on the August 2008 war; his controversial April 9 statement; recent amendments to the country’s Law on Grants; and the prisoners arrested during recent pro-EU protests.
Local Elections and Opposition
The GD strongman believes that the ruling party will have no trouble securing a landslide victory in the upcoming local elections scheduled for October, whether the opposition participates or not. Still, he expressed hope that the opposition would boycott the polls, which he said would only make the GD’s job easier. “If they participate, they will be defeated badly, and if they don’t participate, this will also be a defeat. For us, this [the opposition’s participation] has no substantial meaning.”
Refusing to accept the rationale that one-party representation in local authorities is not good for a country’s democracy, Kobakhidze instead lashed out at the opposition, calling the four main forces that won seats in the last elections “agents” and saying that their absence in the municipalities would simply be “great.”
“I wish there were an opposition that wasn’t [at the very least] a network of foreign agents,” Kobakhidze said. “As soon as this spectrum vanishes, as soon as the spectrum of agents vanishes from the [Georgian] political space,” what he apparently considers a normal opposition will “naturally” emerge.
Regarding the ruling party’s plans to ban opposition parties, Kobakhidze said that the process in the Constitutional Court would be completed by the end of this year at the latest.
The GD plans to ban the opposition after the local elections based on the final report of the one-party parliament’s temporary investigative commission looking into alleged crimes by, but not limited to, the UNM, which it says will be submitted to the country’s Constitutional Court.
Giorgi Gakharia, the Gavrilov’s Night, and “Deep State”
Irakli Kobakhidze slammed his former fellow party mate Giorgi Gakharia, now the opposition leader, who testified this Monday before the rump parliament’s temporary investigative commission in a six-hour fiery questioning.
Revisiting the brutal crackdown on protests near Parliament on June 20, 2019, widely known as Gavrilov’s Night, in which several people lost their eyes to rubber bullets, Kobakhidze claimed that the ruling party agreed after this event that Gakharia, then interior minister, should have left his post.
“The discussion took place after June 20, and in the end it was decided that Gakharia should have left his post… [But] there was a phone call from the “deep state.” It was a [foreign] official, a high official, who called from abroad and said that his dismissal would not be feasible,” Kobakhidze said, without naming the person but claiming that the ruling party knows who it is. He argued that Gakharia, who was not dismissed but later promoted to prime minister after Gavrilov’s Night, was influenced by the “deep state.” Until 2021, when Gakharia left the ruling party, “Georgia’s sovereignty was limited,” Kobakhidze said.
GD Parliament’s Investigative Commission, August War, and Giorgi Antsukhelidze
Kobakhidze commented on the rump parliament’s temporary investigative commission, which is tasked with probing crimes committed by, but not limited to, former UNM government officials.
Addressing the August 2008 war – one of the more controversially discussed topics at the commission – GD PM Irakli Kobakhidze reiterated the ruling party’s narrative that it was “Saakashvili’s regime” that started the war. He insisted that by saying so, Georgian Dream is not blaming the country itself.
“It was Saakashvili’s bloody regime, the agents! When agents start a war… when an illegitimate, criminal regime starts large-scale military operations, this cannot in any way mean that Georgia started the war,” Kobakhidze said, accusing former President Mikheil Saakashvili of acting on “orders” from abroad.
Kobakhidze fully endorsed the commission chairwoman Tea Tsulukiani’s controversial remarks that national hero Giorgi Antsukhelidze, who was tortured and killed by the occupying forces after the war, was killed “senselessly,” but corrected her, saying Antsukhelidze was not sacrificed for Saakashvili’s PR campaign, as Tsulukiani claimed, but because of what he called “the treachery of agents.”
“We don’t need to create new heroes [who would be claimed by war],” Kobakhidze said. “We need heroes who serve their homeland not through sacrifice in war, but by contributing to the country’s development.”
April 9 Statement
Kobakhidze addressed his earlier statement on April 9, the anniversary of the 1989 massacre, in which he referred to a “foreign power” – without naming the Soviet Union or Russia – that he said “committed violence” on Rustaveli Avenue 36 years ago. His comment, which avoided specifying the “foreign power” and compared it to the same one the ruling party claims is behind today’s protests, was met with public backlash. Kobakhidze responded to critics by mocking, “Georgian liberals and liberals in general have a limited mind.”
He further said, “Among those who dispersed the [1989] April 9 demonstration and killed people were not only Russians…but also Ukrainians, Baltic, Central Asians, and others. It was the Soviet Union.”
Law on Grants
Commenting on recently adopted amendments to Georgia’s law on grants, which prohibit foreign donors from giving funds to local organizations without the executive green light, Kobakhidze said, “If there is anything that this legislation protects, it is precisely, first and foremost, the interests of Georgian society.” He pushed back against criticism from civil society groups who argue that the ruling party wants to leave Georgians “defenseless” against state “punitive actions” by cutting off funding to watchdogs and rights defenders.
Political Prisoners
The GD premier said the majority of those widely seen as unjustly arrested in the ongoing protests are “victims” of propaganda. But he singled out Mzia Amaghlobeli, the detained journalist and director of Batumelebi/Netgazeti, saying she is not such a “victim.” Kobakhidze claimed that Amaghlobeli had a “task” – “to downgrade the police and insult their dignity.”
He added that a government should treat young people with leniency and adopt a humanistic approach, but stressed that this does not mean that the law should not be enforced.
Russia-Georgia relations
Asked about recent comments by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin about Moscow’s readiness to restore diplomatic relations with Georgia, Kobakhidze said the occupation remains a “red line” that makes such a move impossible.
“Not to mention anything else, but even legally it is impossible for us to talk about restoring diplomatic relations [with Russia] under occupation,” he said.
U.S.-Georgia relations
The GD prime minister reiterated the ruling party’s message that the reset of relations with the United States “essentially” depends on the defeat of the “deep state.”
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