The former Lufthansa manager Giorgi Gacharia is the new head of government in the South Caucasus Republic of Georgia. The 44-year-old politician, who was seen as more pro-Western, was already the country's interior minister. Now he received in a vote in parliament 98 votes of the ruling party "Georgian Dream". There were no opposing votes, but opposition parties did not demonstratively participate in the vote.
Previously, Mamuka Bachtadse resigned after only one year in office as Prime Minister. Both he and Gacharia are considered loyal followers of the Georgian billionaire Bidsina Ivanishvili, who pulls the strings in Georgian politics and who founded the party "Georgian Dream" a few years ago.
Studied in Moscow
From 2008 to 2013, the new Prime Minister Gacharia was responsible for business development in Eastern Europe and in the states of the former Soviet Union as director of Lufthansa. In the office of the Minister of Interior Gacharia was last in the mass protests in Tbilisi because of the hard action of the police in the criticism.
As head of government, he affirmed that Georgia would continue to seek EU and NATO accession and deepen relations with the US. Gacharia, who studied political science in Moscow, said that for Georgia, the "occupation" of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is the biggest problem today. Thus, 20 percent of the national territory for the central government in Tbilisi economically unusable.
After a brief war, Russia took control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, both recognized as independent states. Georgia describes Russia as an occupier.