Brawl in Georgia’s parliament makes international headlines
By Tea Mariamidze
Monday, December 29
Major foreign news outlets such as Euronews, The Telegraph, NBC News and Radio Australia, have taken an interest in the recent brawl that took place in Georgia’s parliament over distributing delegates to the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe(PACE).
According to The Telegraph, a fistfight broke out when an argument over the composition of Georgian delegations in international institutions turned violent.
“Insults and accusations were traded, with MPs quickly coming to blows,” The Telegraph claims.
Euronews stated in their coverage that some MPs went as far as ripping out microphones and using them as weapons. It also states that medics were called to treat three injured politicians.
MPs on Friday got into a physical scuffle hitting each other with microphones because they didn’t agree on how to distribute delegates to PACE after the Free Democrats quit the majority and moved to the opposition.
National Movement representatives were against the decision to reshuffle quotas, as it had two seats out of five in the delegation.
During the discussion, Akaki Bobokhidze from the National Movement accused the government of being “pro-Russian” and used insulting words against the ruling coalition that resulted in a physical confrontation between the UNM and Georgian Dream MPs.
Despite the clash, voting was held in parliament and a new distribution of seats in the PACE delegation was endorsed.
The Free Democrats, as a newly formed opposition faction in the parliament, gained a seat in the PACE delegation at the expense of the UNM, which was opposed by the UNM opposition party. The GD parliamentary majority group retained its three seats in the five-member delegation.
