Ruling party official Samkharadze accuses jailed ex-PM Garibashvili of “dirty campaign” against Georgian Dream

Georgian Dream parliamentary majority member and the party’s regional secretary Dimitri Samkharadze has accused jailed former Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili of launching an “insulting” and “dirty campaign” against Georgian Dream and its founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Samkharadze was responding to Garibashvili’s latest letter this week, in which the former prime minister criticized Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and already resigned former top official Mamuka Mdinaradze, while also raising questions over the death of human rights defender Lazare Jorbenadze.

“Since the former prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, began an insulting, dirty campaign against Georgian Dream and the party’s founder, Mr. Bidzina Ivanishvili, from prison following the corruption-related crime he himself admitted to, I, as the party’s regional secretary, have refrained from publicly expressing my position,” Samkharadze wrote on social media on Wednesday.

Samkharadze added he had been waiting to see “what path” Garibashvili would take and “to what level of degradation” he would descend after admitting to a crime and accepting his sentence.

He described Garibashvili’s current conduct as a “personal, political and human tragedy,” saying he would not engage with the substance of the former prime minister’s statements because, in his view, they were not subject to rational discussion.

Samkharadze also accused Garibashvili of having descended to the level of Asaval-Dasavali (newspaper), which he alleged had been financed by Garibashvili himself with money he had illegally obtained.

In his latest letter, Garibashvili said he believed the public had become convinced that his previously published letter was authentic and that the facts it contained were true. He claimed that Mdinaradze had made “extremely serious and gross mistakes,” which, according to Garibashvili, had resulted not only in his removal from office but also in his departure from politics.

Garibashvili argued that Mdinaradze’s departure from politics could not erase what he described as “the gravest and irreparable damage” caused to the country, its people and Georgian Dream with the involvement of Mdinaradze and Kobakhidze.

The former prime minister also referred to journalist Dito Chubinidze and former politician Irma Inashvili. He said that on February 12, 2026, an article from the February 2 edition of Asaval-Dasavali, featuring an interview with former human rights defender Lazare Jorbenadze, was sent to him allegedly on the instructions of Kobakhidze and Mdinaradze.

He claimed the article was largely devoted to criticism of Kobakhidze and contained serious allegations against him. Garibashvili claimed he was asked whether he was behind the article, which he described as a suspicion based on a “completely false perception.”

He said he rejected the allegation and told those who approached him not to return with similar questions, adding that such critical articles were not his “handwriting.”

Garibashvili further said he later learned that Jorbenadze, who had been interviewed for the article, had died by suicide some time after its publication.

He also claimed that Asaval-Dasavali had itself publicly raised questions about Jorbenadze’s death and questioned the suicide version.

“What was the real cause of the death of human rights defender Lazare Jorbenadze?” Garibashvili asked, adding that he was raising the issue publicly because questions allegedly remain unanswered regarding the deaths of several people who died by suicide during the period of the Kobakhidze-Mdinaradze government.

Samkharadze said Garibashvili’s case should serve as “another lesson” for the Georgian Dream political team, showing how, in his words, a person’s career can end when they betray the party’s ideals and exchange the homeland, principles and team unity for personal material interests.

Addressing what he described as the “true soldiers” of Georgian Dream, Samkharadze said the party’s “fight without compromise” for the return of the homeland, the removal of the “agency” and the country’s liberation began in 2011 under the leadership of Bidzina Ivanishvili.

He said the party’s unity was a counterweight to what he described as the numerous acts of betrayal witnessed along the way.