The new Constitution establishes far more balanced and stable relations between the authorities and will prevent any authoritarianism, – the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, Irakli Kobakhidze made this statement at the Strategic Communications Forum: Multi-stakeholder Solutions for Strengthening Georgia’s Democratic Narrative.

As Kobakhidze noted the Parliament today hosts a very important discussion on strategic communications in the modern democracy, like Georgia.

According to him, the establishment of an effective strategic communications system is a difficult task even for the developed countries, especially for the democratic states exchanging information, knowledge and opinions in free and open debates format.

“Formation of effective strategic communication system is a difficult task even for the developed countries, especially for the democratic states exchanging information, knowledge and opinions in free and open debates format. It stands the double challenge for Georgia: we have the strategic communication system under development and at the same time, we undertake the fundamental reforms and thus, contradicting with the foreign pressure directed against our sovereignty and territorial integrity. There are many directions for improvement of strategic communications system of Georgia. I would like to underline how we value and rely on contribution of our strategic partners – USA and EU. And still, we shall do our best to ensure efficiency of the system without conceding our national interests or democratic values. This effort is paramount for EU integration of Georgia, namely for implementation of EUAA commitments”, – Kobakhidze said.

He touched upon the recent democratic reforms and the achieved progress stating that the progress in terms of democratization and good governance are not enough for effective communication with domestic and international society.

“Recently, Georgia has made significant steps to true democratization: starting from protection of private property up to establishment of the rule of law in the penitential system. The reforms are impressive indeed and internationally recognized. In 2018, the new Constitution has triggered full transformation from a vague post-Soviet reality into far stronger democratic legal system. The new Constitution establishes far more balanced and stable relations between the authorities and will prevent any authoritarianism. And still, we encounter the reality that success of democracy and good governance are not enough for effective communication with domestic and international audience about addressing the challenges we encounter and solutions. For a couple of years, the incumbent Government of Georgia encountered the paradox unlike the preceding administration. Against the background when the preceding Government did its best to convince and society and international society in own democratic aspirations, the reality was graver. No surprise that since 2012, they have been defeated in all elections. On the contrary, the Georgian Dream, despite the wide-scale reforms, tries to communicate about each and every success achieved on the way to democratization, state formation and EU and NATO integration”, – Speaker of the Parliament said.