“Of course, all decisions concerning personnel matters are coordinated with Bidzina Ivanishvili. Personnel changes are a normal matter, but nothing of the sort is planned at this time,” First Deputy Speaker of Parliament Gia Volski said in response to a question about whether personnel changes were planned and whether Bidzina Ivanishvili makes decisions regarding such changes.

According to him, discussions about personnel changes usually begin when some other positive statistic or situation needs to be overshadowed.

“Of course, all decisions concerning personnel matters are coordinated with Bidzina Ivanishvili, but they are not coordinated with him as a final authority. Rather, when the process is underway, the party chairman, the prime minister and other officials discuss personnel issues in various areas. Naturally, we should not attribute this to Bidzina Ivanishvili personally. It is normal for the governing leadership to discuss personnel matters.

“As for the issue of changes, there are periodically statements about this. As a rule, this happens when some other information, some positive statistic or situation needs to be overshadowed. At the same time, statements are made every day that something terrible is happening in the country.

“As soon as something positive is published, or a statistical agency or the World Bank releases some positive data, an attempt immediately begins to overshadow it with something else: that drugs are spreading somewhere, that someone is covering something up somewhere, that personnel are being changed, that one person is leaving and another is coming, names are being mentioned, and so on.

“Personnel changes are a normal matter, but nothing of the sort is planned at this time,” Gia Volski said.