Georgia’s parliament approved former ruling party leader Irakli Kobakhidze as the next prime minister on Thursday (8 February).
Lawmakers approved Kobakhidze as the new prime minister by 84 votes to 10 after his predecessor, Irakli Garibashvili, resigned last week to lead the ruling party in the upcoming parliamentary elections, saying he would lead Georgian Dream party to a “convincing victory in parliamentary elections,” scheduled for October.
Kobakhidze stated that he would prioritise his government’s accession to NATO and the European Union. He also claimed that “restoring Georgia’s territorial integrity is the goal of our political team, which will do everything to that end.”
A constitutional scholar and university professor, Kobakhidze, 45, was speaker of parliament from 2016 to 2019 and vice president of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly for Human Rights Watch from 2020 to 2022.
The government reshuffle comes a month after billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who served as prime minister of Georgia in 2012-2013 and officially retired from politics in 2021, returned to take over as honorary chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party in December.
Limiting the power of oligarchs was one of several requirements the EU demanded of Georgia to move towards European integration.
