There are clear signs that the President of Georgia is purposefully obstructing the regular activities of the National Bank of Georgia with her actions. The relevant statement was released today by the Political Council of Georgian Dream.

“Several days ago, on behalf of the political council of Georgian Dream, a statement was published about our attitude towards the President of Georgia. In particular, we stated that we, as the ruling party, had a special responsibility to protect the highest constitutional institutions, which is why we refrained and would refrain in the future from evaluating the problematic statements and actions of Salome Zourabichvili.

The ruling party bears equal responsibility for the protection of the President of Georgia and other state institutions and ensuring their proper functioning.

Therefore, it is our duty to take appropriate measures when specific actions of the President of Georgia threaten the proper functioning of other state institutions.

We want to remind, that due to the actions of the President, for a long period of time, there was a problem with the timely performance of the tasks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

At the same time, there were obstacles to the implementation of the country’s foreign policy, which, according to the Constitution of Georgia, is the exclusive authority of the Government of Georgia.

In particular, the President refused to appoint specific persons nominated by the Government to the highest diplomatic positions, despite the fact that the Constitution of Georgia gives the President only legal discretion in their appointment.

Salome Zourabichvili appointed the relevant candidates to the highest diplomatic positions only after the Georgian Government filed a constitutional lawsuit with the Constitutional Court of Georgia.

President’s actions create problems for the proper functioning of the most important constitutional institution, the National Bank of Georgia [NBG]. To date, two positions of the board member are vacant in the NBG, and the position of the president of the NBG has been vacant since March 2.

According to the Constitution of Georgia, the members of the Board of the NBG shall be elected by the Parliament after the nomination by the President. Accordingly, the said decision should be made on the basis of consultations between the ruling team and the President.

Such consultations between the Georgian Dream and the President have already taken place, after which she confirmed her readiness to present the candidacy of Lasha Khutsishvili as one of the members of the board of the NBG. During the consultations, specific dates were announced - February, March 8, etc. However, she violated all the agreed deadlines and she has not presented a candidate for membership of the board of the NBG to the Parliament until now.

According to one of the agreements, Salome Zourabichvili should have presented the candidacy of Lasha Khutsishvili to the Parliament in case the legislature did not override the veto imposed by the President on the organic law on the NBG. The Parliament fulfilled the agreement and did not override the veto, however, unfortunately, Salome Zourabichvili broke the promise in this case as well. The last communication with the President on the issue of the election of board members took place yesterday on the initiative of the ruling team, however, she said that she would not present any candidate to the Parliament by the end of the year.

Such a harsh attitude by the President towards one of the most important constitutional institutions is in direct contradiction with her constitutional responsibility.

There are clear signs that the President is purposefully obstructing the regular activities of the NBG with her actions. In such conditions, the Parliament will have to override the veto and finally adopt the amendments to the organic law on the NBG, the purpose of which is to ensure the smooth operation of the NBG. The Parliament will complete this procedure in the next session week.

The ruling team will not allow an institutional crisis in any state institution and will take care of the proper functioning of each constitutional body. This is the responsibility of the ruling team to our state and Georgian voters”, - reads the statement.