Incumbent PM Irakli Garibashvili, whose government will face confidence vote in the Parliament, said that there will be no changes in his cabinet except of those two ministers who have stepped down on April 28 and on April 29.

Environment Minister Elguja Khokrishvili resigned on April 28 and Minister of Sport Levan Kipiani stepped down on April 29; Garibashvili has yet to name replacements for these two ministerial posts. A week ago Infrastructure Minister Davit Shavliashvili was replaced by Nodar Javakhishvili. As a result of these resignations number of cabinet members, replaced since it last time won the confidence vote in July 2014, reached seven, prompting the need for new confidence vote.

“This is completely healthy political process,” Garibashvili said. “Changes in the government are natural, because the government should be adequate to dynamic developments. Our political team is united.”

“We will have new ministers only in those ministries, whose heads have resigned – Minister of Sport and Minister of Protection of Environment and Natural Resources,” Garibashvili said.

He stressed on the need to finalize all the procedures for winning confidence vote in the Parliament, where GD coalition holds the majority, as soon as possible ahead of “number of upcoming important events”, among them EU’s Eastern Partnership summit in Riga on May 21-22 and annual meeting of EBRD board of governors and business forum, which will be hosted by Tbilisi on mid-May.

“I want to request the President and the Parliament to carry out confidence vote [procedures] in the shortest possible time and to complete relevant procedures this week if possible,” Garibashvili said.

“The Parliament will give a vote of confidence to the government and our political team will continue working with its usual pace. We have very ambitious plans,” he said.

“I want to call on all the political forces and population for calm. This is absolutely healthy process and we are ready to continue to serve our country,” he said.

GD parliamentary majority leader, MP Davit Saganelidze, said that the ruling coalition lawmakers will support giving new confidence vote to the incumbent government, led by Garibashvili.