parliament

(Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–The Georgian parliament again failed to hold an extraordinary session about how to tackle a drastic drop in the value of the national currency, the lari.

Again, the reason for cancelling the plenary session was that parliament members from the governing Georgian Dream coalition failed to show up, and therefore the minimum number of attendees was not reached; what’s called a quorum.

The lari started falling in value in November, 2014 and reached a 14 year record low a few weeks ago. The National Movement and some economic analysts blamed this on an incorrect economic policy by the government, along with external factors.

About a month ago, opposition parties appealed to the president to call an extraordinary parliamentary session, and ask the economy minister, finance minister and head of the National Bank to come and report on the reasons for the crisis and the government’s plans to deal with it.

The president at first did not consider it necessary to have such a session and instead gave the government until March 5 to present an action plan. The National Movement tried to hold the session nonetheless, ignoring the president’s rejection, but the Georgian Dream MPs failed to show up and the session was called off.

After the government failed to present an action plan by the March 5 deadline, the opposition parties again appealed to the president to appoint an extraordinary session, which he did. It was scheduled for Friday at 12:00, but MPs from the coalition again didn’t show up.

The economy and finance ministers didn’t wish to attend today’s session either. Only opposition MPs showed up in parliament in Kutaisi.