Georgian society speaks against MP who insulted president

The charges laid by the leader of the Industry Will Save Georgia Party Gogi Topadze against President of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili have caused a stir in the country.

As EADaily reported earlier, on Feb 3, President Margvelashvili delivered his annual speech in the parliament. His address was followed by remarks by the leaders of the parliamentary groups. Topadze accused Margvelashvili of having insulted his people. “You are the leader of Georgia. All you say is analyzed. I would like to remind you what you have said about the Georgian people, the Georgian language. You have compared the Georgian people with people with Down’s syndrome. It is a pity you evaluate your people this way. Once you said you would never enter this filthy palace but you are here today. You have forgotten what you have said,” Topadze said.

Topadze also criticized Margvelashvili for attending the UN General Assembly. “The presence of two leaders from one country was not good for its image,” Topadze said.

He added that Margvelashvili took up a “strange attitude” towards the government even though it was they who nominated him for presidency.

Margvelashvili was surprised to hear such accusations. Most of the Georgian politicians and human rights activists are indignant. “The Georgian society will give the most appropriate answer to this statement,” the head of the Presidential Administration Giorgi Abashishvili said.

The opposition qualified Topadze’s words as an insult. “Everybody understands that it was a very unbalanced and insulting statement. I think Gogi Topadze was speaking on behalf of somebody else,” the leader of the United National Movement parliamentary group Levan Bezhashvili said.

“I think it was a tactless statement and I would advise Topadze to apologize,” the leader of the Georgian Dream parliamentary group Giya Volsky said.

A number of NGOs have even organized an action of protest and have termed Topadze’s words as “discrimination.”

Later Topadze appeared with explanations. He said that he was not going to insult anybody and if some people misunderstood him, he was ready to apologize. But he just quoted Margvelashvili’s article. “I just wanted to say that a person regarding his people like this must not become a president. To me his words were an insult,” Topadze said, urging Margvelashvili also to apologize to his people for his words.