Allegations on Gov’t not being independent “insulting”, leading to increasing polarisation - Parliament Speaker

Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Shalva Papuashvili on Tuesday said allegations on the Government not being independent were “insulting” and led to “increasing polarisation” in the country’s domestic political environment.

Papuashvili called on “everyone”, including European politicians, to “refrain from such rhetoric”, and stressed the Government acted with the “responsibility assigned to it by the Constitution”, with all its members making decisions “on their own responsibility” and “independently”.

[A]ny person, whether it is a Georgian politician, activist, or a foreign politician, anyone who says that [te former Prime Minister Bidzina] Ivanishvili is an oligarch, at the same insults the Georgian Government, the Georgian people who elected this Government”, the head of the Georgian legislative body said.

"[W]e also urge our foreign counterparts to match their rhetoric with the depolarisation condition [outlined by the European Union for granting Georgia the membership candidate status]”, he added, pointing to the challenge of overcoming division on the domestic political field.

Of course, the statements and the repeated allegations against the Georgian Government that I, as the chairman of the Parliament, am not independent, and the Prime Minister is not independent - such rhetoric is insulting, and only leads to an increasing polarisation within the country”, Papuashvili said.

Earlier today Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said the “campaign of so-called ‘deoligarchisation’”, which he claimed was organised by “internal or external political opponents”, involved a “completely unsubstantiated accusation” against former PM Bidzina Ivanishvili and was aimed at “discrediting” the current governance system in the country.