Kaladze slams Presidential involvement in party negotiations

Tbilisi Mayor and ruling party Secretary General Kakha Kaladze on Thursday questioned President Salome Zourabichvili’s role in the ongoing negotiations between political figures Mamuka Khazaradze and Giorgi Gakharia. Kaladze claimed the ongoing discussions on potential unity, facilitated by Zourabichvili, were driven by “external forces” rather than genuine collaboration.

“It is not at all clear what the president is doing in these negotiations,” Kaladze told the press, suggesting that both political parties were uniting due to their shared difficulty in surpassing the electoral threshold. He emphasized that the alliance was not based on mutual respect, as the two sides had previously exchanged harsh accusations, referring to one another as “crooks.”

Kaladze stated that despite their differences, the parties were cooperating because of instructions they had received from external sources. He implied that the primary motivation behind this alliance is the challenge of overcoming political barriers.

“The situation is simple. They don’t like each other, but they are acting on external instructions to overcome the political barrier with this union,” Kaladze added.