Opposition urges Tbilisi Mayor to quit post

Irakli Abesadze, the head of Tbilisi City Council’s United National Movement opposition faction, has called on Tbilisi’s Mayor, Davit Narmania, to leave office.

The opposition representative reminded the elected Tbilisi Mayor about the resent resignation of Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and advised Narmania to take the same step.

Abesadze stressed that Narmania has done nothing “but planting and counting trees”, as before coming to power Narmania promised to plant million trees in capital Tbilisi.

Narmania himself says he is not going to resign as “much has been done for the welfare of Tbilisi’s residents and much was planned to continue this positive trend.”

However, sections of the media speculates that in the coming days Narmania might be dismissed by the Tbilisi City Council, as both majority and minority representatives of the body are not happy with the activities of the Mayor.

It should be noted that expectations of Narmania were bigger before his election to the post and the population hoped more from the politician, who enjoys excellent qualifications and experience, especially in the field of economics.

It should also be stated that various positive steps had been taken in the capital. However, the capital city still suffers from poor infrastructure, traffic jams, environment and pollution problems, parking problems and many other issues.

Narmania’s rating would be higher if he had taken genuine steps to solve the most serious problems more urgently.

It is also obvious that there is certain bad inheritance Narmania received from his predecessors – the Tbilisi City Park company among them - but he should have been more active in the process of settling a range of problems.

Herewith, there is an impression amongst the people that Narmania is too obedient to the central government and fails to protest against the decisions lobbed by the state authority, especially the projects that are related to Georgia’s former Prime Minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili.