IVANISHVILI NOMINATES NEW CABINET
The Prime Minister designate and leader of Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GDDG) Bidzina Ivanishvili completed the nomination of a new cabinet on October 16, after revealing most candidates a week earlier. Personalities with different professional background and experiences as well as young, western-educated and previously untested politicians will take ministerial posts after the new parliament approves their candidacies later this month.
The post of interior minister goes to the 30 year-old Irakli Garibashvili, a graduate of University of Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne. He has been working at Ivanishvili’s charitable foundation Kartu for eight years and is assumed to be Ivanishvili’s right-hand man.
Tea Tsulukiani, a 37 year-old dynamic female politician, will take the position of Justice Minister. She obtained a MPA at École Nationale d’Administration (ENA), France’s elite graduate school for civil servants, in 2000 and has since been working as a lawyer at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In 2010 Tsulukiani became the deputy of Our Georgia – Free Democrats party (OGFD) chairperson Irakli Alasania, who will in turn simultaneously serve as defense and deputy prime minister in Ivanishvili’s government. Alasania has been engaged in the Georgian political opposition since 2008 when he resigned from his post as Georgia’s ambassador to the United Nations and established the OGFD party.
Maia Panjikidze, a former spokesperson for GDDG, will become minister of foreign affairs. In 2007-2010 Panjikidze served as Georgia’s ambassador to the Netherlands but was dismissed, allegedly due to her ties with Alasania, as she is her sister-in-law.
Former Milan soccer star Kakhi Kaladze will take the posts of second deputy prime minister and was first nominated minister of regional development and infrastructure, but later transferred to be minister of energy. Kaladze won the majoritarian race in his native Samtredia single mandate constituency in the parliamentary election. Although he lacks proficiency in politics, Ivanishvili apparently views him as a reliable companion and one of his closest allies in the new government.
Former public defender Sozar Subari will take charge of the probation and penitentiary system, replacing the recently appointed Giorgi Tughushi on the ministerial post. After Subari left the public defender’s office in 2009, he co-founded the now defunct opposition Georgian Party along with former defense minister Irakli Okruashvili. Subari will now take the post as an independent candidate.
The GDDG’s Executive Secretary Nodar Khaduri will take the post of minister of finance. Khaduri is a professor of economy from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University and has previously worked for the ministries of economy and finance at different times.
Davit Sergienko, the head doctor of the hospital Ivanishvili has built in his native Chorvila Sachkhere, will become the minister of labor, health and social affairs. Davit Kirvalidze will take the post of agriculture minister and Davit Darakhvelidze will head the ministry in charge of internally displaced persons issues.
Paata Zakareishvili, a Republican Party member and a forthcoming critic of Tbilisi’s policy toward Abkhazia and South Ossetia, will head the State Ministry of Reintegration. Giorgi Kvirikashvili will become minister of economy and sustainable development. Kvirikashvili is a former member of the board of directors in Ivanishvili’s Kartu Bank.
Among the other nominees are former diplomats from the OGFD who previously served under the Saakashvili government. Alexi Petriashvili and Kote Surguladze are set to become state ministers for Euro-Atlantic integration and Diaspora issues respectively.
Levan Kipiani, the son of famous Georgian soccer player David Kipiani, will become the minister of sport and youth affairs while another political newcomer, the writer Guram Odisharia will take responsibility for the Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection.
Giorgi Margvelashvili, rector of the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs will become education minister. The former national coordinator in Georgia for the OSCE-administered Environment and Security Initiative, Khatuna Gogaladze, will lead the ministry of Environmental Protection.
Davit Narmania, founder of the Caucasian Institute for Economic and Social Research, will temporarily head the ministry for Infrastructure and Regional Development, which is envisaged to be slimmed down and merged with the ministry of economy.
Skeptics argue that Ivanishvili’s cabinet will fail to fulfill the promises made during the election campaign as GDDG stirred excessive public expectations of improved social welfare. Critics also insist that most nominees lack apt expertise and, in the absence of a well-defined economic policy, they may take steps that might be fatal for the somewhat reformed young democracy.
Another concern refers to the future state minister Zakareishvili’s attitude to the law “on occupied territories” and the prospects for legally binding agreements on non-use of force between Sukhumi and Tbilisi, as well as between Tskhinvali and Tbilisi. Zakareishvili thinks that the law should be revised and that Georgia’s stance so far, refusing to sign an agreement directly with de facto governments, might be revised. Critics claim that such an approach constitutes a step toward recognition of the two breakaway regions, which corresponds to the Kremlin’s interest rather than Georgia’s.
Finally, although both Georgia’s president and its designated prime minister have vowed to facilitate a smooth transfer of power, critics argue that political cohabitation between the two political forces will remain a sensitive issue over the coming year.
