Ruling party secretary calls on US ambassador to be “clear” on deoligarchisation

Mamuka Mdinaradze, the executive secretary of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Wednesday called on the United States ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan to “be clear in her statements” regarding the issue of deoligarchisation in the country.

Mdinaradze said an absence of such “clarification” would lead “many people inside and even outside the country” to have the impression that “talking points of the domestic opposition matches the pathos” of the ambassador, in response to a recent statement by Degnan on a relevant bill being prepared by authorities in Georgia.

In his remarks over the matter, Mdinaradze noted that if Degnan’s statement that the law on the deoligarchisation should be tailored to the “Georgian reality and specificity” meant that it should be “tailored to a specific person” - in reference to businessman and former Georgian Dream prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili - “it means that we are putting the principles of law aside”.

Yesterday, Khatia Dekanoidze [one of the leaders of the opposition United National Movement party] came out and said the law should be tailored to Bidzina Ivanishvili. Today, Kelly Degnan came out and said that this law should be drawn up with Georgian specifics. If more clarity is not introduced here, and if there is no further clarification, many people in this country and even outside the country will have the impression that the talking point of the opposition matches the pathos of the representative of our partner and friendly country”, the GD official said.

Earlier today, Degnan told local media that she did not believe it was “always helpful” to borrow examples of laws from other countries’ experience without “tailoring” them to domestic specifics, in reference to the ruling authorities in Georgia revealing they were working to introduce the law on deoligarchisation that would reflect Ukraine’s practice with the law.

Anri Okhanashvili, the chair of the Georgian parliament's legal affairs committee from the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Monday said the bill was being prepared by the working group engaged in implementing European Union conditions for granting Georgia the membership candidate status.

Okhanashvili noted discussions on the bill would begin after the Council of Europe's Venice Commission submitted its report on the Ukrainian version of the bill.