Georgia ruling party backs West sceptic for PM

Georgian Dream party members voted unanimously to back Kobakhidze as premier at a congress in the capital Tbilisi despite the country’s long-held ambitions to join both NATO and the European Union.

His nomination is likely to raise eyebrows in the West over Kobakhidze’s claims that European countries and the United States are trying to drag Georgia into the Russia-Ukraine war.

The 45-year-old’s rise adds to suspicion that Georgian Dream was reorienting the Black Sea nation towards Russia.

“Irakli Kobakhidze has the mandate of the congress as the candidate for the post of prime minister,” outgoing premier Irakli Garibashvili, who stepped down on Monday, told the meeting. 

The government reshuffle came a month after the comeback of the powerful oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Ivanishvili, the country’s richest man who made his fortune in Russia, is widely believed to be calling the shots in Georgia despite having had no official political role until recently.

In December, he took the post of the ruling Georgian Dream party’s honorary chairman and analysts have suggested his return foreshadows imminent political changes.

Curtailing the power of oligarchs was among several requirements demanded by the EU for Georgia to progress on its European integration path.

Georgia will hold parliamentary elections in October, with outgoing premier Garibashvili replacing Kobakhidze at the helm of Georgian Dream. He vowed to lead the party to a “convincing victory”.

A constitutional scholar, Kobakhidze, 45, served as parliamentary speaker between 2016 and 2019