Georgian PM Bakhtadze steps down, warns against political divisions
Source: Reuters
WORLD NEWS SEPTEMBER 2, 2019 / 6:51 AM / UPDATED 3 HOURS AGO
Georgian PM Bakhtadze steps down, warns against political divisions
TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze announced his resignation on Monday after little more than a year in the job and said the country must not be riven by political divisions that could play into Russias hands.
Bakhtadzes resignation comes as the ruling Georgian Dream partys popularity has sagged following the brutal dispersal of an anti-Kremlin protest in Tbilisi on June 21. Parliamentary elections are due in October next year.
Bakhtadze, 37, a former finance minister who became prime minister in June last year, used a lengthy post on Facebook announcing his resignation to warn against damaging divisions in the country.
...we must always remember that the only one who will win from the polarization of Georgian society will be an occupying country, he wrote.
Georgia fought and lost a short war with Russia in 2008, prompting the countries to cut diplomatic ties. Russia went on to recognize the independence of two breakaway Georgian regions where it now has troops garrisoned.
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