On the committee, Gorduladze was responding instead of Levan Ioseliani. The Public Defender is not a figure of such weight that someone should be defending him. On the contrary, he should be defending others — how can a Public Defender allow himself to become someone who needs defending, said Giorgi Sharashidze, a member of the “Gakharia for Georgia” party, in an interview on PalitraNews’ program “360 Degrees,” commenting on the presentation of the Public Defender Levan Ioseliani’s 2025 report at the Parliamentary Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee.

According to him, Ioseliani is not the level of Public Defender that Georgia deserves today.

“The Public Defender should be a hope in people’s eyes, someone who appears wherever needed, but instead we have a Public Defender who needs to be defended by the ruling ‘Georgian Dream.’ At the committee, Gorduladze was answering in his place. The Public Defender is not a figure of such weight that someone should be defending him. On the contrary, he should be defending others. He is trying to avoid making sharp statements, unlike what society expects. We know what is happening in this country in terms of human rights violations. How can a Public Defender allow himself to become someone who needs defending?

We demand that he be the Public Defender of everyone. At one point he said, ‘I am not Giorgi Gakharia’s lawyer,’ but I want to remind him that he is everyone’s lawyer, especially in a situation where there is an authoritarian regime and human rights violations are being ignored. It is a matter of his stature. Timely reaction is important, as is giving people hope. Today, people may not even know who the Public Defender is,” Sharashidze said.

The politician also spoke about the upcoming annual report of Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze. According to him, it will “definitely not be an easy walk” for Kobakhidze.

“It will definitely not be an easy walk for Kobakhidze, especially when our team is waiting for him in Parliament. If you read his report, it is smile-inducing; in every sentence and every page there is an attempt to escape responsibility, as if nothing happening in this country is his responsibility.

Even the issue of prices was started by him — he personally initiated it, spent a lot of time and effort, recorded videos, arranged meetings in the administration, then had a parliamentary commission created. And yet, in the report, not a single word is mentioned about it. He was the one making promises, but not only did he fail to make things cheaper, he couldn’t even decide whether products are more expensive in Europe or in Georgia. Everyone knows about the ‘10-lari meat’ issue. Prices are one part; human rights violations are another.

In the last two years, the country has accumulated problems — starting from the ‘Moscow mechanism,’ continuing with critical EU Commission reports on enlargement, suspension of strategic partnership with the United States; the Prime Minister cannot visit anywhere except Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and no one shakes his hand; he does not go to countries that shape foreign policy — and we have nothing against Kyrgyzstan.

I also hope he will have the courage to name the person who called from the ‘deep state.’ We will not allow him to stage another flood of lies; he has been caught in multiple lies,” Sharashidze said.

Regarding the prosecution of eight more people in connection with the events of October 4 at the Presidential Palace, Sharashidze stated that they will not engage with people who had any role in those events.

“We will of course never cooperate with people and politicians who had any role in what happened on October 4. Responsibility lies with everyone. Wasn’t it Salome Zurabishvili’s call to people not to go to the elections? That was such a big mistake, if not a crime, that we have no dealings with its authors.

We said we were going through the electoral path, and as time passes, we become even more convinced that our decision to enter the elections — despite difficult conditions — was the only politically responsible decision.

A political partnership with Salome Zurabishvili is out of the question. What united list? Should any member of our team end up alongside the ‘Nazis’? Wherever the ‘Nazis’ are, we have nothing to do there.

No one has taken responsibility for the outcome so far, so what future plans are we talking about? They gave up local resources. ‘Georgian Dream’ always looks for excuses and will continue to do so to justify the tightening of authoritarianism, and they will not even blink. What ‘Georgian Dream’ is doing is unfair, but there is another side — who brought the situation to this point?” Sharashidze said.