“Political fraud” – impeachment of the president of Georgia
“Political fraud” – this is how Georgian political analyst Gia Khukhashvili assesses the statement of the ruling Georgian Dream party about the beginning of the process of declaring impeachment of Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili.
The chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream, Irakli Kobakhidze, announced on September 1 the launch of impeachment proceedings against President Salome Zurabishvili for “gross violation of the constitution”.
According to the Georgian constitution, the president can exercise representative powers in foreign relations only with the consent of the government, as the implementation of the country’s foreign policy is the responsibility of the government.
On 30 August, the Government announced that the government prevented her from visiting other countries and holding official meetings there, explaining that “the president opposes the interests of the country’s European integration”. On August 31 Zurabishvili went to Germany anyway and held a meeting with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. On September 1 she met with President of the European Council Charles Michel.
Earlier, the presidential administration released a statement saying that the purpose of the trip and meetings with European leaders was to lobby for support for granting Georgia candidate status for EU membership.
Constitutional conflict
1. On the President’s arguments:
“The constitution explicitly states that all institutions of the country are obliged to act in such a way as to favour Georgia’s accession to the European Union. The President’s European visits to lobby for Georgia to be granted EU candidate status are her fulfilment of her constitutional duty.
When the government prohibits her from doing so, she is in direct violation of the constitution”.
2. On the government’s arguments:
“The government, for its part, appeals to the same constitution and says that it is the president who violated the constitution when she did not fulfil the government’s demand.
However, in barring the president from travelling to Europe, the government was obliged to state the reason in the motivation part. This did not happen.
It appears that the government has unjustifiably restricted the institutional leader from realizing her constitutional duty that serves the long-term interest of the state.
We are dealing with a constitutional conflict, with a kind of political contradiction between two norms of the constitution. Now the Constitutional Court and society have to decide which norm has priority.
“Political fraud” – impeachment of the president of Georgia
“The positive side is that this conflict means the revival of the political process”
“The authorities’ statement on impeachment has no substantive, state dimension. In fact, there is no aim to impeach the president.
In terms of content this dispute has no meaning, it is just a confrontation. It is clear that Georgian Dream cannot easily gain 100 votes in the parliament to bring the impeachment procedure to an end. This is rather a political statement.
So far, the opposition, not the government, has been concerned with revitalising the political process. The government was not interested in that. But now it has taken up the burden and given the society food for political revival, which is welcome.
Now the whole society should publicly discuss this conflict – who is really lobbying for EU accession, who is sabotaging.
If Georgia gets candidate status – it is the merit of the authorities, and Salome Zurabishvili is just scoring points.
If Georgia does not get the status of a candidate – it will be the President’s fault.
This is a dirty political game of pure water, which has nothing to do with state interests.
This very statement of Kobakhidze is already damaging the interests of the state and confirms that their only interest is to look after themselves. They look at the country through this prism, and this is the misfortune of this country”.
“Political fraud” – impeachment of the president of Georgia
