Parliament of Georgia Will Return to the Capital

Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi 

The 9th convocation of the Parliament of Georgia will resume spring sessions in the old building of the parliament in the capital. Kutaisi, which presumably obtained a status of the parliamentary capital only for a short time, will go back to its old routine. 

Majority of the 9th convocation of the Parliament of Georgia, like of the previous convocation, believes maintenance of the parliament in Kutaisi is nothing more than extra financial costs for the country which is not affordable for Georgia. Moreover, it is noteworthy that construction of the 37-million-GEL building of the Parliament in Kutaisi is not completed yet. Specialists say another 20 million GEL is needed to finalize the construction. However, soon after the government officials from the Georgian Dream took their offices in the new government, declared that they are not going to spend anything on the building.

“First of all, the Parliament of Georgia shall be located in the capital. I had the same opinion in 2012 when I became the member of the 8th convocation of the Parliament and am on that position now. The reason is very simple and clear – the Parliament shall be located close to other state institutions so that the government members, who are very busy, shall not waste time and funds on traveling to and from the parliament. Of course it does not mean that Kutaisi is less important city for us but in order to develop the city presence of the Parliament of Georgia there is not enough. We need to conduct more important and reasonable activities in that direction” MP Zviad Dzidziguri said.

Civil society does not agree with the position. Kutaisi based NGOs representatives created a special group in the social network “Parliament shall stay in Kutaisi” and held several demonstrations to support their idea. Soon after the 2016 parliamentary elections, representative meeting was organized; appeal letter to the Parliament of Georgia was elaborated to request them to keep the parliament in Kutaisi. Otherwise they announced permanent protest demonstrations.

“We believe the parliament shall stay in Kutaisi. It is the only way to help the city. If they make different decision, the city will drop the development speed at all,” Khvicha Vashakmadze, head of the Information Center of Kutaisi said.

Members of the United National Movement share the position of the civil society members. Akaki Bobokhidze said: “If the parliament is removed from Kutaisi, it means the city life will end. We had a lot of plans when moving the parliament here. We had projects according to which 5 star hotel was to be built in Kutaisi. Foreign guests, international organizations had to actively visit the city. Kutaisi should have developed and turned into a European city. It was our goal and we did our best to achieve it. Our colleagues today say that the Parliament should be close to the government institutions and do their best to take the legislative body back to Tbilisi.” 

However, to move the Parliament to the capital, the law-makers will have to amend the Constitution of Georgia which claims that the location of the legislative body can be changed only temporarily and only in emergency or war situations.