Georgian government assessed as effective or defective

The debates concerning the performance of the Georgian government which lasted for almost one week were unprecedented in the history of the Georgian Parliament. Both the ruling authorities and the opposition, not surprisingly, differently evaluated the effectiveness of the Ministers' week. Most notably, the opposition highlighted the alleged defects in the government's performance and demanded the immediate resignation of the whole government headed by the prime minister.

On one hand these debates proved that the country is very slowly moving in a democratic direction, but on the other hand, these particular debates showed the existence of big gaps between the two opposing standpoints. This concerns the criteria for the assessment of the current situation and outlining the prospects for the future development of the country. Gilauri and his team were unanimous in highlighting successful reforms and a bright future of the country. The PM in particular stressed upon the fact that the country has escaped from crisis, saying that the anti-crisis plan promoted by the government was the main reason for such success. He also mentioned that Georgia is the only country in the region which currently has positive economic growth.

The opposition, however, radically challenged these statements, labeling them as a PR stunt and in which they presented an inadequate assessment of the situation. Minority leader Giorgi Targamadze from the Christian-Democratic Party said that Georgia has not an effective, but rather a defective government and that the programme it pursues is targeted at degrading the situation so that people will become even poorer with total unemployment and he demanded the immediate resignation of the government. Of course, such demands yielded nothing. The parliamentary majority supported its government vigorously, praising its course and attacking the opposition. During the Parliamentary debates, sides used insulting language, many times both sides mentioned that the rival party was deluded and cannot see and does not have an adequate grasp of reality. So, the Parliament debates at the end of the day did not create a consensus but rather on the contrary, it further increased the polarization of the positions between the two sides. But still, we think that even the fact that such debates take place with open criticism gives ground to suggest that Georgia is slowly developing democratically.