Ruling Party head brands ex-PM Gakharia a “traitor”, citing “axiomatic truth'”

The head of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Irakli Kobakhidze, on Friday once again branded Giorgi Gakharia, the former Prime Minister and current chair of the For Georgia opposition party, as a “traitor”, following the latter’s recent invitation to Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of the ruling party, for debates after his return to politics earlier this month.

Kobakhidze, in his comments, characterized Gakharia, who left the party and premiership in 2021, as a “compromised and subservient chairman of the party with a mere two percent public approval” and commended Ivanishvili’s “special merit” to the country.

Kobakhidze also shifted blame onto Gakharia for his “arbitrary rush” into Basiani nightclub in 2018, during his tenure as the interior minister, and the “artificial creation of the first confrontation between the youth and the police.” Additionally, he criticized Gakharia for the “expulsion of local policemen from Mestia municipality in western Georgia for forest protection” during his term and his decision to subject the police in the Muslim-inhabited Pankisi Gorge to “heavy abuse.”

Accusing Gakharia of sparking confrontations during the June 2019 rallies over the presence of Russian MPs in the Georgian parliament, Kobakhidze questioned Gakharia’s choice of rubber bullets over water cannons. He further alleged Gakharia’s alliance with the United National Movement and questioned his role in urging parliamentarians to lift former UNM chair Nika Melia’s immunity, before “changing his stance” to arrest him in 2021. 

Gakharia this week once again accused Ivanishvili of running the country from behind the scenes and claimed he had been “forced” to re-enter politics.