According to the leader of Strategy Builder, Giorgi Vashadze, Georgian Dream once again chose the Russian path when they failed the selection process of Ombudsman candidates.

As he told the journalists, the government is hindering the European integration process with its policy.

"Today we publicly saw how Georgia­n Dream is sabotaging the European integration process of Georgia, they failed the issue of the election of the Ombudsman. From the very first day, Strategy­ Builder was saying that the whole fraudulent scheme they came up with, presenting so many candidates, as if they had no candidates, had the sole purpose of misleading the citizens of Georgia. It has been unequivocally proven that the goal of Georgia­n Dream is not to get the status of a candidate country of the European Union, their goal is to somehow make Europe deny us the status of a candidate. That is why the candidates for Ombudsman were rejected, that is why they did not support the impartial candidates for the Council of Justice. They manage some symbolic process, as if they want to receive the status of a candidate for the European Union, this will ultimately lead to nothing. Unfortunately, this is a political will, Georgia­n Dream once again chose the Russian path when they failed the selection process of Ombudsman candidates," said Vashadze.

For information, Parliament failed to elect Public Defender. None of the 19 candidates presented to the Parliament were elected. Taking into account the Constitution and legislation of Georgia, the Parliament should have elected the Public Defender for a term of 6 years, with a majority of not less than three-fifths of the full composition. This is 90 votes, which no parliamentary party has, and a political agreement was needed.

source: IPN