Ruling Party Names Renewed Staff for its Political Council
By Tea Mariamidze
Wednesday, May 2
The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party has chosen new members of its political council, after deciding to reduce the number of members from 21 to 15.
The decision was made during May 1st sitting of the political council of the ruling party.
The list of the political council consists of representatives of legislative and executive government as well as tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of the party.
The list of the new political council members is as follows:
1. Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of the party and former Prime Minister
2. Prime Minister Georgia Giorgi Kvirikashvili
3. Chairman of the Parliament Irakli Kobakhidze
4. First Vice Speaker Tamar Chugoshvili
5. Vice Speaker Giorgi Volsky
6. Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia Deputy Ilia Nakashidze
7. Archil Talakvadze, the leader of the parliamentary majority
8. Mamuka Mdinaradze, Chair of Georgian Dream faction
9. MP Dimitri Samkharadze
10. Bidzina Gegidze, GD MP
11. Irakli Tripolsky, MP
12. The Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development Maia Tskitishvili
13. Minister of Refugees Sozar Subari
14. Davit Saganelidze, Chairman of the state-led Partnership Fund
15. Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze.
After the sitting, Kaladze stated that the new composition of the political council agreed to name Bidzina Ivanishvili’s candidacy for the GD Chair post.
He added that in the near future there will be a party congress, which will elect Ivanishvili as the party chair again.
Akaki Zoidze, member of the GD majority, stated that the membership of the political council was not his aim.
“We agreed that the council should be composed of Executive Secretaries, Speaker of the Parliament, as well as faction representatives…We wanted maximally flexible structure of the party, this is why we reduced the number of council members to 15,” he added.
Ivanishvili became the Prime Minister of Georgia on 25 October 2012 but on 17 November 2013 he resigned and quit politics.
The decision of his return to politics was announced on April 25 after the GD meeting.
Prime Minister Kvirikashvili stated Ivanishvili’s return will strengthen the team and create additional motivation for its members.
