President Giorgi Margvelashvili nominated Zurab Pataradze, who has served as Georgia’s ambassador to Kazakhstan up until now, as new head of local government in Adjara Autonomous Republic.
The nomination, also backed by PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili, has to be approved by the 21-member Supreme Council, which is local parliament in the Adjara region.
Also on July 14 President Margvelashvili used his constitutional powers and appointed Pataradze with the consent from the PM, as a provisional head of the Adjara’s government, or rtsmunebuli as the position is called in Georgian, meaning “trustee”.
It means that even if Pataradze is not approved by the Supreme Council, where not a single political party holds majority, he will still continue performing duties of head of local government in his capacity of rtsmunebuli.
Speaking with journalists in Batumi after holding consultations with political groups in the Supreme Council, President Margvelashvili expressed “firm confidence” that the local legislative body will approve the nomination.
Head of Adjara’s government became vacant after Archil Khabadze filed resignation on July 6, three months before the election of the Supreme Council, scheduled for October 8 simultaneously with the parliamentary elections in the country.
Khabadze’s announcement about the resignation came few days after ex-head of the Adjara government, Levan Varshalomidze, returned to Batumi and launched a campaign for upcoming elections.
Varshalomidze served as head of Adjara Autonomous Republic’s local government in 2004-2012 under then President Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration.
Saakashvili, who is now governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region, said in early May that Varshalomidze, who spent last couple of years in Ukraine, should return to Adjara and become head of the region after the UNM opposition party, which Saakashvili chaired before losing Georgian citizenship, wins in the October elections.
Varshalomidze, who has yet to be formally named by the UNM party as its candidate in Adjara, was accompanied at some of his campaign events in Batumi about two weeks ago by Georgia’s ex-first lady Sandra Roelofs.
Provisional head of the Adjara government, Zurab Pataradze, 43, worked at anti-organized crime unit of Adjara Autonomous Republic’s interior ministry before joining the Foreign Ministry in 2000.
Native of Batumi, Pataradze was a second secretary at the Georgian embassy in Moscow in charge of consular service since 2004 and after Georgia and Russia cut diplomatic ties, Pataradze served as a consular at the Georgian interests section at the Swiss embassy in Moscow till 2009.
Pataradze then served as Georgia’s consul general in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki and was ambassador to Turkey from 2012, before becoming ambassador to Kazakhstan in mid-2013.
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