On Thursday, Georgia’s Prime Minister who had held the post since 2019, announced his resignation because of a disagreement with his own party members. The reason for the same was over detention of an opposition party leader Nika Melia.
The chairman of the United National Movement Niki Melia has been accused of organizing “mass violence” during antigovernment protests in 2019. For now, Melia’s arrest has been temporarily postponed after the statement of the PM.
Mr. Melia said that case against him is a judicial nonsense as he had already posted bail in 2019 and the charges were trumped-up to target the opposition because of ongoing repression. He had denied the charges, however, he will face a nine-year sentence if convicted the decision by the court.
Melia wants to start negotiations on new early elections. On the other hand, Georgian Dream’s chairman said that it will put country’s Defence Minister Irakli Garibashvili forward to replace Gakharia.
Gakharia has been dubbed by opposition as “Moscow’s man” and has been blamed of having opposition ties with Russia. Since 2018 war, Russia and Georgia had tension relations over two breakaway pro-Russia provinces. Before being appointed as the PM, Gakharia ordered police to crackdown anti-Moscow protesters when he was an interior minister in 2019.
Gakharia said that he was unable to reach the decision with his party so he decided to quit which will further reduce political polarization in the country as well as the risk factors against the citizens of Georgia.
