Georgian Dream parties may be left empty-handed

It is possible the bank accounts of five political subjects of the Georgian Dream coalition to be sequestered. This is based on a decision made by the Monitoring Department of the Chamber of Control, on June 25.

According to the monitoring service, Management Service ltd through its own resources, rented and rendered renovation works worth 476, 614.51 GEL for office spaces of the Georgian Dream Coalition in different regions of Georgia. The offices continue to be utilized by the following political subjects: Public Movement Georgian Dream and members of the Coalition Georgian Dream- Republican Party, National Forum, Our Georgia-Free Democrats, Georgian Dream –Democratic Georgia and Conservative Party.

The Chamber of Control claims that the free service carried out by Management Service Ltd for the benefit of the political subjects was deemed to constitute an illegal donation by the court.

The monitoring department outlined that their aim is not to “carry out sanctions”– that is why they had appealed to the political subjects to return the money back to the Ltd account. However, their appeal was rejected.

After the denial, “According to the rules established by the organic law, the Chamber of Control of Georgia has recognized the mentioned political subjects as offenders, and the administrative proceeding materials were conveyed to the Tbilisi City Court,” the statement of the monitoring service reads.

Georgian Dream lawyer Archil Kbilashvili denied any violation and displayed the scenario how the issue might be prolonged. He outlined that all the agreements signed with the company by the members of the coalition parties had been fulfilled based on common market prices. Kbilashvili also underlined that the Civil and Appellate courts would declare the political subjects as law breakers and would impose five-times the normal fine on them. “The parties rejected giving the sum back to the company and of course they would not be able to pay the exorbitant fine. In this case the bank accounts and properties of the political subjects might be sequestered,” Kbilashvili mentioned.

Kbilashvili emphasized that through the law, the government has the right to sequester the parties’ accounts and properties. “However, it would be depended how sensible the authorities would act. It is a fully politicized process,” Kbilashvili states.

Political analyst Soso Tsiskarishvili does not exclude the authorities to sequester the above mentioned political parties’ accounts and properties– "the current Georgian government will do everything to preserve its position. If there is a choice between the chair and Georgian political orientation, the current leadership will definitely choose the first one and ignore the state interests,” Tsiskarishvili told The Messenger.

Based on the Head of the Election and Political Technologies Research Centre, Kakha Kakhishvili, the last action (concerning Georgian Dream coalition subjects) carried out by the monitoring service of the Chamber of Control, was carried out based on the idea that levying a fine against Ivanishvili had turned out to be useless for the ruling administration “when they have seen that Ivanishvili is not going to pay the fine and his property is mainly registered abroad, the ruling administration has decided to take out the money from the subjects of the coalition,” Kakhishvili said.

Kakhishvili did not agree with Tsiskarishvili’s statement concerning the choice between power and political vectors and mentioned that the image of a democratic leader is important for Saakashvili, “thus he would not carry out such actions openly to be compared with some dictator leaders in the international eye and would undertake such actions inside the state ( through the court , chamber of control and so on) to maximally oppress the opponents and maximally irritate them , for to push them to some inadequate actions,” Kakhishvili told The Messenger.