An easy guide to the new Georgian cabinet

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The leader of Georgian Dream, the coalition which won the parliamentary elections in Georgia, Bidzina Ivanishvili, has announced the new Georgian government. As it was expected, the government is headed by Ivanishvili himself. The key ministry positions will be taken by the former head of the charity fund Cartu, Irakli Garibashvili, as the minister of internal affairs and the deputy chairman of the party Free Democrats, Teha Tsulukiani, as the minister of justice. The leader of Free Democrats, the former Georgian envoy in the UN, Irakli Alasania, will be the vice-premier and the minister of defense. The former football player Kakha Kaladze takes the ministry of regional development and infrastructure and becomes second vice-premier.

The foreign policy will be directed by the press-speaker of Georgian Dream, Maya Pandzhikidze, who becomes the foreign minister, and the member of Free Democrats Council, Alexi Petriashvili, who is appointed to the position of minister on European and Euro-Atlantic integration. The minister of punishment execution and probation will be the former ombudsman Sozar Subari. The layer Archil Bilashvili took the position of the general prosecutor. At the same time, a part of positions hasn’t been allocated yet. The positions of ministers of education, environmental protection, finances, energetic, and economy and stable development. The director of Cartu Bank, Nodaru Dzhavakhishvili, will head the National Bank of Georgia.

“Everybody who supported Ivanishvili within the coalition Georgian Dream got his or her piece of the pie. The most significant are positions of vice-premiers who will be the closest persons to Ivanishvili,” the editor-in-chief of Vestnik Kavkaza Alexei Vlasov thinks. The political scientist believes that professional skills of new ministers were not the main criterion during the casting: “The attention was paid to personal contribution to the victory in the elections. The brightest example is appointment of Kaha Kaladze. We know what a football player he is and what an active politician he is. However, is he prepared for the position of the minister of regional development and infrastructure? Why didn’t he get the ministry of sport and youth?”

Meanwhile, the head of the Caucasus Strategic Studies Center, Mamuka Areshidze, thinks we shouldn’t conclude that the new government will be ineffective. “They are young people who came to politics yesterday or a day before yesterday. These people have shown themselves in this or that sphere and have management experience.” Furthermore, the new government includes David Kirvalidze as the agricultural minister, previously he took this position under Eduard Shevardnadze; and Amiran Gamkrelidze who managed healthcare and social protection in the government of Zurab Zhvania. The political scientist Yeugeni Minchenko considers presence of former Shevardnadze and Saakashvili’s ministers in the current government as “a return of the Georgian elite which was suppressed by Saakashvili.” “These positions are not key,” Alexei Vlasov agrees with him. “Presence of these people means that they are good functionaries and have high professional skills.”