Government reaches out to President
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Wednesday, September 17
The government has decided to end the confrontation between the country’s executive power and the president. Majority MP Zakaria Kutsnashvili visited the president on September 16 to deliver the government’s messages to him and define certain sections of the constitution.
Kutsnashvili stated that the president is ready to collaborate with the government, to meet with majority members and answer their questions.
“The president stressed that he opposes no one. We have discussed his rights in the domestic and foreign policy fields. I told him about the restrictions the president faces in the foreign policy direction, in terms of meetings and various solutions,” Kutsnashvili said.
Kutsnashvili stated that the president has no plans to move to the opposition or create any opposition entity.
Members of the Georgian Dream coalition stress that they did their best to ensure Marvelashvili’s victory in the presidential election. They state that positive relations between the government’s branches are essential for the country’s advancement. However, certain members of the coalition directly accuse the president in provoking controversy within the government.
State Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Alexi Petriashvili, says the president rarely says hello to ministers. After returning from Latvia, Petriashvili pointed out on his Facebook page one “alarming fact”.
”The president said some people disrupted his visit to the U.S. What does it mean? Who did it? If his former, current or informal advisors were engaged in this ‘disruption’, he should explain it. If he means a Foreign Ministry, I have a very strict position about it. The Foreign Ministry does its utmost to represent the country positively,” Petriashvili says.
According to him, he supported one president and now he sees a different one.
UNM members claim that billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili still interferes in the government’s activities, and his negative attitude towards Margvelashvili is reflected on the whole coalition.
Analysts Mamuka Areshidze and Kakha Kakhishvili believe that Ivanishvili interferes in politics when it comes to some crises.
“Ivanishvili’s recent interview with Kvris Palitra coincided with gridlock over the departure of the Georgian delegation to New York at the UN Summit. If the Foreign Ministry had managed to solve the problem between the President and Prime Minister, Ivanishvili might not have given the interview at all. Only after the interview some steps have been taken both by the government and the president,” Kakhishvili states.
