Parliament VS President

Georgia’s Parliament Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze has accused President Giorgi Margvelashvili of “deliberate misleading the public” over the activities of the 73-member State Constitutional Commission, which is tasked with making key changes to the country's constitution this year.

Kobakhidze stressed the President’s statement that the commission wasn’t focused on genuine changes and only aimed to more diminish President's role was deliberate discrediting of the commission’s work.

Kobakhidze stressed if the president continued making of such statements the majority may change its current solution over the president’s direct elections for 2018 and the president could be appointed for the next time and not for 2022.

“It’s not right to con the public with such statements,” Kobakhidze said, and added that if the commission wished to make “subjective solutions” as the President stated, they wouldn’t have taken Margvelashvili’s view into account and the new President would be appointed in 2018.

In his previous statements, Kobakhidze said the president should be an arbiter and not a political figure in a parliamentary republic.

He said in order to avoid political speculations, the next presidential elections should be held in within a direct election format; however, afterwards the system should be changed.

Kobakhidze stated that “minimal changes” were planned in the renewed version of the state constitution in terms of the presidential institution, as the changes put in the constitution under the United National Movement Government in 2010 reduced the powers of the president significantly.

The current constitution really requires changes and the changes must be adopted through the large scaled consensus.

The current authorities say the draft law of the changes should be ready for April 30 this year.

There is absolutely no need to rush any changes being made to the country's constitution, and such comments made by senior figures only serve to further muddy the process and raises questions over the competence of the commission.