Georgian PM: ruling party advised then presidential candidate Zourabichvili in 2018 not to ‘tell truth’ about origins of 2008 war

Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has said that, during the 2018 presidential election, the ruling Georgian Dream party, advised then independent candidate Salome Zourabichvili who was backed by the GD, not to make public “true” comments on the causes of the 2008 war with Russia.

Speaking to journalists on Monday, Kobakhidze said the guidance was intended to avoid political controversy over the sensitive issue, which remains a divisive topic in Georgia’s domestic politics. 

Zourabichvili, a former French-born diplomat who became Georgia’s first female president in 2018, has previously made remarks suggesting that the country’s then-government bore partial responsibility for the escalation that led to the five-day conflict with Russia. Those statements have drawn criticism from opponents who accused her of undermining Georgia’s position in the international arena.

“In 2018, we explained to Zourabichvili that, at that moment, it was not advisable to tell the truth about the 2008 war, because we would have had to take a defensive position. We had infiltrators within the team. Under such conditions, telling the truth would not have been the right course, and exactly what we warned about happened.

Kobakhidze on Monday repeated accusations that the 2008 conflict had been initiated “not by Georgia,” but by what he called the “treasonous, foreign-installed” government of then-President Mikheil Saakashvili.

“Just as one cannot say that Georgia killed Sandro Girgvliani or Buta Robakidze, one cannot say that Georgia started the war in 2008. The war in 2008 was not started by Georgia but by Saakashvili’s treasonous regime, installed from abroad,” Kobakhidze told journalists.

He alleged that Saakashvili remained in power through “electoral fraud” and that by launching the conflict he was “carrying out an external order.”