Georgian PM welcomes new US administration’s different approach toward Georgia

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Tuesday said that the previous US administration actively worked in ways that discouraged the domestic opposition from making use of its parliamentary mandates, while expressing approval that the current administration has taken a different approach.

In his remarks, Kobakhidze noted that in his view, all political parties should respect the mandates granted to them by voters, arguing that this principle was not followed by parts of the opposition in previous election cycles, which he linked to what he described as external political influence.

“We welcome the fact that the new [US] administration’s approach is different. Their attitude toward such issues is also different. The previous administration, on the contrary, did everything it could to prevent the opposition from using its mandates. This happened after the 2020 parliamentary elections, and the processes leading up to the 2024 elections were prepared in the same way. As a result, in one case, we had to go through extensive negotiations and sign agreements, and even after that, part of the opposition still refused to enter parliament. In 2024, three of the four parties that passed the electoral threshold did not enter parliament. The previous administration directly encouraged this”, he said.

The Prime Minister welcomed the new administration’s different approach.

“In general, every party should respect the mandate entrusted to it by its voters. The opposition failed to do so in previous cases, and this was the result of direct interference by the then US administration and European bureaucracy, both in 2020 and in 2024. We are pleased that the new administration’s approach is different”, Kobakhidze concluded.