Being a parent is no easy task. Obedience is key. But when it comes to criticism from his political papa, 58-year-old billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of Georgia's ruling Georgian Dream coalition, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili appears willing to try and be the dutiful political son.
Following nationally televised criticism from Ivanishvili of his recent description of ex-Defense Minister Irakli Alasania as “an adventurist, foolish and ambitious,” Gharibashvili conceded in comments on November 10, that his remark, coming amidst a dramatic government shake-up last week, was perhaps a little out of line. “I, too, did not like what I said about Alasania,” he said.
He tried to amend his words after Ivanishvili, his career mentor and former boss, commented that “[e]motions must be reined in… “
“I, too, am critical of his political maturity,” Ivanishvili said of the 32-year-old Gharibashvili in a prime-time, 90-minute interview with Georgian Public Broadcasting on November 8.
The sequence of statements brought to the fore pending questions about who is the boss in Georgian politics, and what does it mean for Georgian democracy.
Ivanishvili, though supposedly no longer interested in politics, has not restrained himself from weighing in heavily on last week’s dismissal of Alasania and the resignations of ex-Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze and State Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Aleksi Petriashvil over Alasania's claims that NATO-membership plans are at risk.
He has held meetings with both Alasania, whom he first appointed as defense minister in 2012, and his protégé, Gharibashvili, and also attended a session of the Georgian Dream coalition as it discussed life without Alasania’s Free Democrats.
He then attempted to put everything in its proper place for TV viewers.
“Let no one think that I am happy about the friendship that I have with the prime minister,” said Ivanishvili, adding that he has not been playing favorites in Georgian politics. “Whoever it is, Gharibashvili, [Parliamentary Speaker Davit] Usupashvili, I ,of course, can support them so long as they lead the country in an auspicious and correct fashion.”
“Auspicious and correct” could mean staying loyal to Ivanishvili’s ideas. Key politicians like ex-Defense Minister Alasania and President Giorgi Margvelashvili, who have defied some of those ideas, have received decidedly public bashings in the past.
That looks set to continue.
Gharibashvili knocked all three departed cabinet ministers on November 10 for supposedly failing to do enough to dispel the notion in the US and EU that his government has a taste for political witch-hunts. Panjikidze described the accusation as absurd.
Then, there’s Margvelashvili. The president, who has fewer powers than Gharibashvili, has commented that all the political infighting cost Georgia an effective minister, Alasania. He is scheduled to address parliament on November 14 about the question of the country’s Euro-Atlantic course.
In his TV interview, Ivanishvili did not hesitate to take a few pug-shots at Margvelashvili, once a close friend. He castigated the president for vetoing a government-sponsored bill on secret surveillance and for competing with Gharibashvili for trips abroad.
“He really likes visits,” he quipped dismissively; and as for the veto, well, Margvelashvili had only used his veto power to show that he could, he reasoned.
But the government’s main line of reasoning may only now be developing.
Ivanishvili and Gharibashvili both have implied that the president’s and ex-defense-minister’s actions are in line with the goals of the opposition United National Movement party, led by ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili. Alasania served as Georgia’s UN envoy, a presidential aide and chairperson of the Abkhaz government-in-exile under Saakashvili.
At the same time, Ivanishvili and members of the government have stated that the Saakashvili-friendly Rustavi2, which interviewed Alasania after his dismissal, is “agitating” for the UNM.
How likely voters are to accept that argument remains to be seen. But for now, with other possible responses to criticism apparently lacking, it could well prove to be the government’s main line of defense for challenges of any variety.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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