Acting PM thanks voters for support in elections, highlights ruling party founder’s role in ensuring “peace, development”

Irakli Kobakhidze, the acting Prime Minister of Georgia, on Thursday said it was thanks to Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder and Honorary Chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party, that the country was “enjoying peace” and an “opportunity to think about “development”.

In his address at a plenary session of the Parliament, which is set to approve the new composition of the Government following last month’s elections, Kobakhidze extended his gratitude to voters for their support.

“I would like to thank Georgian citizens once again. It was the Georgian people who had given us the mandate to take care of the stable, peaceful development of our country for the next four years”, the acting PM said.

I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank the leader of our team, the founder of our party, Bidzina Ivanishvili. It is precisely his merit that today the country has peace and the opportunity to think about development and progress. Thanks to Bidzina Ivanishvili for this opportunity that he has given to our citizens and our country”, he continued.

He further claimed that the elections had been a “kind of referendum between immoral propaganda and traditional values”, and added the public had supported the latter.

Once again, I would like to emphasise the importance of the elections that took place in Georgia on October 26. These were extremely fundamental elections. The 2024 parliamentary elections were equal in importance to the 2012 parliamentary elections, and we clearly showed the public what these elections were about, it was a kind of referendum between war and peace. The public supported the peaceful development of our country”, Kobakhidze continued.

He also commented on the opposition’s ongoing boycott of the Parliament by saying that “the opposition benches are empty, but it must also be said that if they were sitting here today, these benches would be exactly as empty as they are today”.

Kobakhidze added there were people in the domestic opposition who had  claimed that with the approval of the law on transparency of foreign funding of non-governmental organisations, the country “would wake up in Chelyabinsk”, in reference to the opposition’s portrayal of the legislation as an example of the country’s alleged shift towards Russia.

Our main concern is our country, our homeland, Georgia - and the [Government] programme has precisely this content, which is caring for our homeland”, he concluded.

The Parliament will give the new composition of the Government and its programme a confidence vote on Thursday.