One of the constant themes of publications of the Georgian media is the process of the European integration of the country. However, countries cannot boast any visible success in this direction, which is why a skeptical attitude to this vector of development has strengthened in a certain part of society. It creates interest in others, particularly in the development of relations with Russia. In this regard, some materials on how some politicians try to use these changes in the mindsets of the population are periodically published in the press.
"Recently, the activity of pro-Russian organizations has been quite obvious, but I doubt that they have a real chance of coming to power. The point is that today Georgia has some systemic problems with Russia. It is impossible to imagine that something can threaten our country’s foreign policy vector. Sympathy for Russia from one part of the country's population is due to communist nostalgia. You can add to this not so much pro-Russian, as anti-Western sentiments, which are caused by the fact that the expectations of the West aren't coming true. According to surveys, this is the reason why the number of people skeptical towards the West has increased. Politicians examine these surveys, trying to use a combination of pro-Russian positions in order to attract this segment of the electorate,’’ Kviris Palitra cites expert Gia Khukhashvili.
"Some do it professionally. For example, Nino Burjanadze, who doesn’t make direct statements that the West is bad and Russia is good. She says that she can normalize relations with Russia. But some politicians are trying to pursue a pro-Russian line in a very unskilled way. They are trying to receive dividends from work with this segment of the electorate. I do not exclude that many pursue such materialistic goals, especially before the elections when the extra funding is to the point. This situation is due to the fact that the Georgian political spectrum is largely divided on the basis of foreign policy orientation. Primarily, the authorities and the National Movement are to blame. The country has many problems, and politicians should be figuring out how to solve them, but the political trend has led to a situation in which somebody has to be pro-Western, and someone has to be pro-Russian. If someone asks about NATO, he automatically becomes a persecutor of the pro-Russian orientation, and vice versa," he said.
Journalists cannot help noticing the resignations in Tbilisi City Hall. Avtandil Sudadze resigned from his post as the head of the service improvement department. Many people link this to his involvement in corruption schemes.
Another senior official of Tbilisi City Hall, the head of the urban service improvement department Avtandil Sudadze, also resigned on his own initiative. It interesting that three days ago the state audit service decided to inspect the service of Public Works, which began to study suspicious tenders that had been carried out by this service, as well as contracts made directly with one person,’’ Alia reported in an article published on October 1st.
It is noted that Tbilisi Mayor David Narmania is inclined to support Sudadze, but his intercession is unlikely to be successful, due to the fact that many leaders of the ruling coalition Georgian Dream are against the dismissed official. "They demand that the contracts and tenders are kept. According to the source, the former vice-mayor, ex-premier Dmitry Kumsishvili, informed Bidzina Ivanishvili about Sudadze. He presented documentary evidence that a lot of money was stolen from the budget with the help of this service. The money was directed to influential politicians and officials of Georgian Dream and their friends. They won tenders, registered them with the friends and relatives of companies and then used simplified ways to conclude thousands of contracts with the Mayor’s offices. It was after this that Bidzina Ivanishvili ordered Garibashvili to deal with City Hall,’’ the publication reports.
‘‘According to the source, Narmania tried to settle the case with Irakli Garibashvili, but he refused. Three days ago, when the service audit began to inspect the service of improvement, David Narmania realized that the prime minister wasn't joking, and advised Sudadze to resign. It is notable that after 1 year and 1 month that man couldn’t solve an easy matter in Tbilisi. According to the opposition, the tenders and contracts are to blame. The companies that worked with Sudadze and other interested people did not even have experience in this sphere in most cases, but this fact didn’t prevent them from winning tenders. We can say that Sudadze is a person of the incapable David Narmania’s team, who has done absolutely nothing. Anyway, David Narmania is responsible for it. He hasn't coped with his tasks, hasn’t implemented projects, neither has he solved a single major problem. He has no prospects,’’ the newspaper reports.
This author does not exclude that this is not the last retirement. According to him, the next one may be the head of the city's Youth, Sports and Culture department Giorgi Areshidze. According to some information, he doesn’t even have a higher education and received his post only due to the fact that he is the brother of the Deputy Prime Minister’s wife – the head of Energy Ministry Kakha Kaladze.
Against the backdrop of the deteriorating socio-economic situation in the country, the mass media regularly draw the attention of their readers to the relatively high salaries of government officials.
"Georgia occupies a leading position among the eight former Soviet countries in respect of the terms of the average salary of workers in the budgetary structure. In comparison with us, the average salary in the state services in Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia is significantly lower. It indicates that the maintenance of the government for ordinary taxpayers is very expensive. The salary of civil servants exceeds 1.381 billion laris. If we add public entities, public companies, or other structures that inherently belong to public services, these costs will exceed 2 billion laris. Wages of some officials are much higher than the wages of the President and Prime Minister. This trend was particularly evident during the Regulatory Commission, NBG, State Partnership Funds and so on,’’ Resonance reports.
"Georgia has one of the leading positions among the post-Soviet countries in respect of high wages. According to the Georgian Statistics Service, the average wage of an employee of the state structure is 1330 laris (about $560). This is $80 less than the average wage of a Russian official. According to the Statistical Service of Russia, the average wage of an employee of the state structure is 42,659 rubles (about $640). Azerbaijan is in third place with an average wage of 479 manats (about $460). The next is Kazakhstan, with 106,000 tenge ($400). The wages of Belarusian officials are about $95 (6.9 million Belarusian rubles) a month. Armenian officials’ average wage is 156,000 drams (about $330). As for Moldova and Ukraine, according to statistics, the average wage of employees of state services is only $220. In Ukraine, it is 4685 hryvnas, and it is 4470 in Moldova, the newspaper reports.
However, the Georgian press write not only about Georgia. They also carefully monitor international issues. The deterioration of the situation in the zone of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict attracted the attention of the Georgian press.
‘‘Today the frozen conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is on the brink of exploding, and it could develop into a hot confrontation. There were several clashes in the conflict zone and on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border during the last week that led to victims and wounded among the civilian population. The sides accuse each other of provocations and nobody is going to stop. On Monday night there was another collision due to which several soldiers were killed... According to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, on Monday night fighting intensified and it led to victims. Three Azerbaijani soldiers and seven Armenian ones were killed. According to Azerbaijani sources, on Monday night the armed forces of the country decided to take active measures and attacked troops and military equipment of the enemy. As a result, seven Armenian soldiers were killed. The Azerbaijani army fully controls the situation along the entire front,’’ Resonance reports.
"It is noteworthy that the situation in the zone of the Karabakh conflict escalated last week. On September 25th, 4 Armenian soldiers were killed and another 16 were wounded as a result of a missile attack by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces. One day earlier, on Thursday, 3 Armenian civilians were killed and 4 wounded as a result of firing from the Azerbaijani side in Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku also made an official statement about the deaths of Azerbaijani civilians. According to them, on Sunday Armenia started shooting in Aghdam and killed civilians, the number of victims was not specified," the newspaper reports.
"The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh has reached high intensity. Unfortunately, we cannot say that it is a frozen conflict. Moreover, this conflict can become a regional war. Earlier, Karabakh was considered to be a local conflict. It was just a struggle between the Azerbaijani regular army and local Armenian separatists. At this stage the conflict is at the level of war between the two countries. Today, the shooting isn’t only on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, but also on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Thus, the epicenter of the conflict can be not in Nagorno-Karabakh and the border areas between the two countries, this may lead to a new full-scale war between the two countries," she cites the opinion of the Professor at the Institute of Public Affairs of Georgia, an expert on security issues Vakhtang Maisaya.
Another topic periodically discussed on the pages of the Georgian press was Russian intervention in the conflict in Syria.
According to the official representative of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, Igor Konashenkova, the Russian air group made the first airstrikes on objects of the international terrorist organization Islamic State. According to President Vladimir Putin, Russia is not going to join the Syrian conflict completely." Russia's participation in the antiterrorist operation in Syria is being carried out according to international law in accordance with the official appeal of the President of the Syrian Arab Republic. I would like to emphasize that the conflict in Syria has deep roots, it is due to different reasons. These are inter-state, internal political, religious and ethnic tensions aggravated by unceremonious interference in the affairs of the region from the outside. Taking into account all these circumstances, we are not going to plunge into this conflict completely,’’ President Putin said. According to him, IS militants threaten Russia and European countries, as well as former Soviet republics," Resonance reports.
At the same time, the fact is that the purpose of this operation is the fight against terrorism, which should cause sympathy and support. We have a rather negative attitude towards this decision of the Russian leadership. "The economic potential of Russia is quite limited, so the Kremlin is trying to hold its policy with the help of stringent methods by using propaganda and information war. Due to the exacerbation of the policy, Russia is trying to attract the attention of the international community and ensure that it will again be allowed to sit at the same negotiating table with Western leaders. Then Russia will be presented as one of the major players on the international scene. On this basis, it creates problems in the Middle East and then demonstrates its activity in order to partially participate in solving these problems. According to the meeting with Obama, we can say that the West won’t fall into this trap anymore, because they are well aware of such Russian tricks,’’ the newspaper cites the opinion of Georgia's former Deputy Minister of Defence, Giorgi Muchaidze.
