Georgian diplomats are growing tired of a traveling political act in which the country’s top two executive branch officials try to upstage each other and grab the international spotlight.
At recent international gatherings and events, including NATO and UN meetings, Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili and President Giorgi Margvelashvili have sometimes engaged in very public protocol spats over who gets to represent Georgia. The peculiar rivalry has been building since Georgia introduced constitutional changes in 2013 that significantly diluted presidential powers. The changes were introduced ostensibly to create an additional layer of checks-and-balances in the executive branch in the aftermath of what many saw as the “imperial” presidency of Mikhail Saakashvili.
A low point in the executive rivalry occurred in July, when the president almost had to jam his foot in the door of Georgia’s parliament building in Tbilisi to attend the signing of a landmark Association Agreement with the European Union. Earlier on, when the EU extended Georgia a preliminary agreement, both the president and the prime minister reached for the pen to sign it. Margvelashvili eventually conceded singing privileges to Gharibashvili, who showed little appreciation for the gesture.
Now, both Margvelashvili and Gharibashvili are angling to lead a Georgian delegation at a UN climate summit, scheduled for September 23 in New York. Not desiring to see yet another public wrestling match besmirch executive authority, Georgia’s Foreign Ministry openly asked the president to let the prime minister go alone, and reminded Margvelashvili that he had enjoyed the privilege of heading the Georgian delegation at the recently concluded NATO summit in the United Kingdom.
As the rivalry has played out, Margvelashvili has tried to downplay his differences with the prime minister, attributing their protocol disputes to hiccups that were to be expected amid the constitutional changes. But Margvelashvili, who was popularly elected, has been increasingly, and some say commendably, reluctant to bow to Gharibashvili, who lacks a popular mandate. Margvelashvili has also shown a willingness to stand up to the governing Georgian Dream Coalition and its powerful benefactor, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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