Akaki Minashvili

Akaki "Ako" Minashvili (Georgian: აკაკი მინაშვილი; born on September 24, 1980) is a Georgian politician, a member of Parliament in 2008-2016 and since 2020, and a former Chairman of its Foreign Relations Committee.

A civil activist, he worked for several civil society organizations, including the Liberty Institute and Article 19 and co-founded the youth group Kmara that would eventually take a leading role in the Rose Revolution.

Minashvili was born on September 24, 1980, in Tbilisi, capital of then-Soviet Georgia.

Akaki Minashvili first joined the civil sector in 1999, participating at the time in the Student Government Association of Tbilisi State University, a youth group focused on advocating for the rights of students in the institution.

In 2001, while still a student in Tbilisi, he was hired as an attorney by the Liberty Institute, a civil society organization affiliated with the Ilia Chavchavadze University promoting liberal values in the newly independent republic.

Through his work, he became a co-founder of Kmara, a youth-based activist movement aimed at fighting against the presidency of Eduard Shevardnadze that would later become one of the main players in the Rose Revolution.

Following the rise to power of the pro-Western Mikheil Saakashvili, Minashvili moved to Article 19, a British non-profit organization dedicated to promoting freedom of speech.

He also became a professor on media freedom at TSU and of human rights at the Chavchavadze University.

He graduated in 2003 from the Faculty of Law of Tbilisi State University.

One year later, he received a degree in human rights from the Vienna-based Central European University.

He is married to Ketevan Kobiashvili and has one daughter.

Executive Director of the liberal Liberty Institute in 2004–2007 at a time when the organization had close ties with the Saakashvili administration, he would regularly provide legislative assistance to the United National Movement and would be appointed to the National Security Council for a short term in 2007–2008, before being elected to Parliament.

In 2004, he was appointed executive director of the Liberty Institute, whose influence had considerably grown within the Saakashvili administration, and assisted the new government in drafting major pieces of legislation, including a Police Code of Conduct after an uptick in police violence cases, a failed alternative to a Lustration Law that had been advocated by the opposition (the latter envisioning a ban on all Soviet-era officials from holding public office) that would have required all political operatives to disclose their meetings with Russian officials, as well as a theoretical monetary compensation plan for Ossetian victims of discrimination in the 1990s.

In some occasions, he criticized decisions of the government, such as the 2004 sentencing of three individuals to prison for spitting on the car of a cabinet minister.

In 2007, Akaki Minashvili was appointed as the Director for Defense and Law and Order at the National Security Council, at the time led by Alexandre Lomaia.

His term at the time was marked by the November 2007 demonstrations that resulted in a violent police dispersal, the resignation of President Saakashvili, and his reelection in the January snap presidential polls.

Foreign Relations Committee Chairman in 2008–2012, Minashvili's term was marked with a reconfiguration of Georgia's foreign policy in the aftermath of the 2008 Russo-Georgian War.

In this context, he sought to have the occupied status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia recognized by Western legislatures, became known for his criticism of European institutions in their lack of attention to the region, and was a staunch opponent to the normalization of relations with Russia.

His influence led to President Saakashvili entrusting him with domestic responsibilities as well and he would represent the ruling United National Movement in its electoral reform negotiations with the opposition.

In the subsequent 2008 parliamentary election, he was placed in 35th position in the ruling United National Movement's electoral list and won a seat in Parliament.

His political influence grew rapidly in the aftermath of the August 2008 Russo-Georgia War and he would be appointed by the end of the year to the High Council of Justice, the Presidential Pardon Commission, and the opposition-chaired investigative committee created to study the circumstances of the war.

In the latter, he hit back against suggestions that the Georgian authorities may have been at fault for the start of the war, providing evidence for a planned Russian massive invasion in the days leading to the conflict.

Minashvili was selected as Deputy Chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee.

On December 26, 2008, Akaki Minashvili was selected as Chairman of Parliament's Foreign Relations Committee, a position previously vacated by Lasha Zhvania who had been appointed as Minister of Economy.

His term shortly following the Russo-Georgian War was marked with a new foreign policy course aggressively focused on countering Russian lobbying against Georgia on the international scene.

As such, he was instrumental in the passage of major pieces of legislation, including the Meskhetian Repatriation Act of 2009, a bill banning offshore ownership of media in 2010, and a ban on political parties promising financial compensation in exchange of votes in 2011.

In March 2009, Minashvili was appointed as the UNM representative to an electoral reform working group set up by the National Democratic Institute, tasked with negotiating a new electoral code ahead of the 2012 parliamentary election.

During the talks, he pushed back against the opposition's demands for direct mayoral elections in all municipalities and the expansion of the proportional election system in Municipal Assembly elections, compromising with a 25–25 formula that guaranteed half of the seats in the Tbilisi City Assembly to be elected in a majoritarian format.

Despite pushback by opposition groups, he took the negotiation process outside of the helm of NDI and held consultations individually with political parties.

He successfully negotiated with Western counterparts for the recognition of the occupied status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by European legislatures and secured strong condemnation words against Russia in a 2009 PACE resolution for Moscow's recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

He called for the resignation of COE Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg for failing to intervene in the liberation of four Georgian civilians captured in Tskhinvali in November 2009.

He also criticized the European Union Monitoring Mission for being ineffective, instead calling for the mission to become a peacekeeping force covering the occupied territories.

He was also an opponent of a proposed Lustration Law that would have banned USSR-era Communist Party members from holding public office and took part in the Constitutional Commissions that passed amendments in 2011 moving Parliament to Kutaisi and reducing significantly the powers of the presidency.

During his term, he was often critical of Public Defender Sozar Subari, himself a vocal critique of the government's human rights record.

In December 2011, he pushed for the approval of new political party funding regulations that proved to be controversial.

He was notably involved in a debate in April 2011 at PACE with Russian MP Konstantin Kosachev, who had compared Mikheil Saakashvili to Muammar Gaddafi.

Minashvili often criticized European institutions for their ambiguous relationship towards Russia.

In the opposition since 2012, he has been one of the most vocal critics of the Georgian Dream-led government and remained in UNM when its European Georgia faction split in 2017.

Reelected to Parliament in 2020, he became the lead negotiator on behalf of UNM during the political crisis that followed the 2020 parliamentary election and the arrest of UNM Chairman Nika Melia, and refused to sign the 19 April 2021 Agreement facilitated by the European Union.

In late 2021, he was involved in two separate hunger strikes to call for the release of imprisoned former president Mikheil Saakashvili.