Irakli Kobakhidze is first the father of his two young sons and only then the Prime Minister of Georgia. His fiasco at this year’s UNGA session has attracted less media attention than the luxurious, unforgettable, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Big Apple that the youthful PM offered his little sons. As the media keeps the anger against corrupt officials at a simmer, the opposition shifts to populism, promising better pensions and social nets. But is one political dinosaur from the far left – still hard to take seriously – teetering on the 5% threshold election? At least one TV station would have you believe so.
In this week’s Talk On Air, Gigi tells of the rich and the poor…both hypocrites.
State Aircraft (?) – Mind Past Drama
Georgian journalists may not always be meticulous, but they are certainly aware that the masses are driven more by emotion than by facts. Nodar Meladze of the opposition-leaning TV Pirveli gets this quicker than others. With rousing music, a fast change of camera angles, and his booming, confident voice – his hands forming a Merkel-Raute – he creates an electrifying atmosphere for his exclusives.
That PM took his sons to New York was no secret — he told us himself. “I personally bought economy class tickets for them and myself,” he said proudly, adding that “the state saved ten thousand Lari.” But Meladze’s team found this hard to believe against the backdrop of the state-funded charter flight that ferried ex-PM Irakli Garibashvili and his son to Munich and onwards to the United States. That story was dug out by Meladze’s team.
So they went digging and found that at least the Tbilisi-Istanbul-Tbilisi legs of the return trip were likely made on a state plane, with Kobakhidze’s sons enjoying the privilege. Allegedly, Kobakhidze blocked access to information about state aircraft on the app, which had previously been used to expose Garibashvili’s misuse of state resources.
But what’s more disturbing is that the father, who campaigns to protect others’ children from Western “gay propaganda,” took his own sons to New York. This is how privileged parenting is done in Georgia: indulging in secrecy.
Kobakhidze insists that he paid for everything out of his pocket, but journalists remain skeptical. The PM, having developed a transparency fetish when it comes to his opponents, declines to disclose the full information. That’s too juicy not to follow up on.
No Salt, No Life
Meanwhile, the trip to New York was lavish. Kobakhidze reportedly dined on the most expensive cuts of steak at the glamorous Nusret Gökçe, better known for Salt Bae—the world’s sexiest butcher—whose meals can cost thousands.
“Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Campbell, David Beckham, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and others dine at his restaurant,” read the TV Pirveli’s report, likely making viewers more envious than hungry. Kobakhidze’s son was even photographed with the celebrity chef. According to urban legends of the rich, such a photo requires ordering a special dish that costs more than a thousand dollars.
I expected the picture to appear, but it wasn’t released because of privacy concerns for the minor. Switching to another channel, Formula, I was surprised to find an investigative report on the same subject. They published the photo, with Kobakhidze’s son’s face blurred yet still recognizable, standing next to that evasive Salt Bae.
So PM Irakli Kobakhidze may have failed to secure a photo with U.S. President Joe Biden – an even greater disappointment as it happened on his birthday – but he seemed to find solace in securing a snapshot of his son with Salt Bae, a privilege not every Georgian child will ever experience (or wish, for that matter…)
Since they have the photo, the rest is easy to deduce. Journalists speculated that the picture was probably taken the same night Kobakhidze was snubbed by Biden and instead dined with the Georgian delegation, including the Georgian Ambassador to the U.S. Since his minor son couldn’t have been left alone, the dinner was likely for at least four people, costing thousands. What remains unclear is whether taxpayer money was spent, but Kobakhidze’s official salary doesn’t cover such extravagant outings. And this is only one piece of the New York trip puzzle.
Did Kobakhidze foot the bill for his son’s expenses from his pocket? “I guarantee you that he did, and those questioning this are cruel liars,” said Kobakhidze’s comrade Mamuka Mdinaradze. Perhaps he didn’t know.
“This wouldn’t be the first time Irakli Kobakhidze has used administrative resources for his sons; just last year, Formula showed how his son was chauffeured in a parliamentary car to private lessons,” said the channel. True, for many, it is hard to trust everything that the local media claims, but for viewers living in poverty, it is even harder not to believe in the stark reality of inequality.
Let that man rule the country for once and…
Although PM Kobakhidze claimed from the UN podium that the GD government had brought prosperity to its citizens, the reality at local bazaars tells a different story. Just ask Shalva Natelashvili, the veteran politician who once promised to “take from the rich and give back to the poor.” He has been such a fixture of Georgian politics that this paper’s 2006 political portrait already referred to him as a “veteran.”
Leader of the Labor Party since 1995, Natelashvili has occasionally made it into parliament, though he often refuses to take on his responsibilities once there – take, for instance, the 2002 decision to yield Tbilisi city council to young Mikheil Saakashvili, thus arguably paving him the way to the presidency. His tendency to inflate expectations of electoral victories—few of which have materialized—has led many to dismiss him as irrelevant. Still, his persistence in chasing political ambitions has surprised many.
Few expected him to cross the 5 percent threshold in upcoming elections, yet the latest poll solicited by Formula TV and conducted by Edison Research, puts Natelashvili at precisely 5 percent, on the verge of making it into the legislature. Coincidentally (or not?), Formula is the only TV station where Natelashvili has appeared regularly in the past two months. The other channels, he claims, have blocked him.
“It’s the rule: all right-wingers become left-wingers before the elections,” Natelashvili told cheerfully Formula’s Day talk show, explaining his lack of concrete social promises. His only goal, he insisted, is to replace the oligarchy with socialism. He pointed fingers at other opposition parties, accusing them of chasing (even more) money in politics, but added that the Labor Party would still be “ready” to collaborate with them once in parliament.
“They (the opposition) steal our socialist slogans and promises, but after elections, they claim socialism is outdated. It’s over. But look at Europe and America – they are socialist worlds. That’s why people live well there. That’s why this system took mankind into space…” Natelashvili then veered into a bit of personal history, somehow managing to praise Roosevelt for ending the Great Depression along the way. The hosts smiled, amused, gently nudging Natelashvili back to Georgia – and to 2024.
He returned to bash the GD, mock Ivanishvili’s oligarchic “aquarium,” and even compared Kobakhidze’s face to Moammar Gaddafi’s in his final moments. Two minutes later, Natelashvili, dead serious, declared that his party – currently polling at just 5 percent under only one poll – needs (and could secure) 76 seats in parliament to pass laws, including banning officials from sending their children to private schools. (Kobakhidze family won’t like that, for certain).
…Bufoon, some would say. But who knows?! A nation in despair may make any unpredictable move.