Kakhaber Okriashvili

Kakhaber "Kakha" Okriashvili (Georgian: კახაბერ ოქრიაშვილი; born on 21 March 1966) is a Georgian doctor, businessman, and politician, founder of the PSP pharmacy network and a member of Parliament since 2004.

Kakhaber Okriashvili was born on 21 March 1966 in Tbilisi, at the time the capital of Soviet Georgia.

He has two brothers, Vazha and Nikoloz, both of whom continue to be involved in the various companies founded by him.

He graduated from the Tbilisi Medical Institute in 1989, after he which he became head doctor at the Medical Clinic of Gantiadi, a village close to Dmanisi.

In 1990, he became the Chief Physician at the Dmanisi District Hospital, a post he held until joining the private sector in 1995.

Kakha Okriashvili is a large donor of several non-governmental organizations, including the largest contributor to the Demographic Revival Fund, a group aiming at addressing the demographic decrease that Georgia has experienced since 1991.

Starting his career as a doctor in the last years of the Soviet Union, he founded PSP in 1995, a company that he led until 2003, and of which he has remained majority owner since then.

In 1995, Kakha Okriashvili and Gocha Gogilashvili, a doctor from Dedoplistsqaro, founded the PSP pharmacy network company, of which he became director until joining the public sector in 2003.

In 2003, he was elected to the Parliament of Georgia as an independent candidate to represent the Dmanisi Majoritarian District.

During the 2003 parliamentary election, Kakha Okriashvili ran as an independent candidate for the Dmanisi Majoritarian District after incumbent Teimuraz Tsikhelashvili refused to run for reelection.

Though the election results would be cancelled after the revelation of massive voter fraud that led to the Rose Revolution, his district's votes were not annulled by the Constitutional Court, thus allowing him to be inaugurated on 22 April 2004.

Joining the Mikheil Saakashvili-affiliated United National Movement in 2008, he would be reelected that year and again in 2012, before leaving the party weeks after its defeat to Georgian Dream (GD).

While he remained independent in his first term, he joined the United National Movement of Mikheil Saakashvili for his 2008 reelection.

Running against three candidates, including Tahir Shaverdov who was nominated by a nine-party opposition bloc, Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burjanadze campaigned for him and he won with 93% of the vote, one of the largest victories in the country.

Through his family, he controls a large part of the Georgian medical market: his wife is the sole owner of GM Pharma, one of Georgia's largest drug manufacturers, while his brother is the general director of New Hospital, one of Georgia's largest private hospitals since 2011.

He also owns 50% of shares of the medical consulting group Chveni Janmrteloba, though he has repeatedly refused to include those shares in his financial disclosure reports.

By 2012, PSP had grown to become one of the three largest domestic pharmaceutical providers on the Georgian market, competing with Aversi and GPC Pharmacy.

While not holding a formal position in the company, he still owns 95% of PSP's shares, while also owning large shares in its subsidiaries, including PSP Insurance and Elektronika 94.

In the 2012 legislative polls, Kakha Okriashvili was once again nominated by UNM to run for reelection and he ran against five candidates, including the Georgian Dream nominee Paata Khizanishvili, a close friend of Russia-affiliated businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili.

During his campaign, the civil society group Georgian Young Lawyers' Association filed a complaint against him over the activities of a private charity tied with his PSP pharmacy network, although the Chamber of Control ruled the charity's work in Dmanisi to be in line with electoral law.

He defeated his opponents in the first round of voting, although Georgian Dream defeated UNM nationwide.

On 5 November 2012, less than a month after the Georgian Dream-led Parliament came into session, Kakha Okriashvili was one of six UNM deputies elected from various majoritarian districts to leave the party and launch the Nonpartisan Independent Majoritarian MPs' Faction (NIM), led by MP Gogi Liparteliani (Lentekhi), and became its vice-chair.

UNM would accuse at the time Georgian Dream of pressuring these MPs to switch parties with threats to their businesses.

Okriashvili served in the Parliamentary Assembly of GUAM in 2012–2016, in the Trust Group, a parliamentary committee in charge of overseeing intelligence and defense funding, in 2014, and in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in 2015–2016.

He would maintain a focus on foreign policy in his fourth term, during which he served in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation.

Okriashvili became chairman of the independent faction on 21 March 2013 and regularly criticized both the government and the opposition, calling the former "inexperienced" and the latter "unconstructive".

In March 2013, his faction endorsed constitutional amendments proposed by Georgian Dream to reduce the powers of President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Formally joining GD in 2014, he was reelected in 2016 in the Dmanisi-Tsalka Majoritarian District.

Okriashvili and the rest of NIM formally joined the Georgian Dream faction in Parliament after the withdrawal of the Free Democrats from the ruling coalition in November 2014, thus safeguarding GD's parliamentary majority.

During the 2016 parliamentary election, Kakha Okriashvili was nominated by Georgian Dream to run in the consolidated Dmanisi-Tsalka Majoritarian District, running against six candidates, including UNM's Bakur Mgeladze.

One of GD's largest financial contributors that year, he won in the first round with 66% of the vote and founded with five other majoritarian MPs a new faction on 26 December 2016, the "Georgian Dream for Regional Development" Faction, which he chaired.

Having become a close ally of the ruling party, he would be appointed to serve on the 2016–2017 Constitutional Commission that rewrote the Constitution to transform Georgia into a parliamentary republic.

A staunch conservative, he has often voted outside of party line to oppose major bills like the 2020 labor reform, the 2017 ban on commercial advertisement in Georgian Public Broadcasting, and calling for a pension reform that would allow individuals to opt out of the mandatory retirement system.

Most controversially, he was a key vote against a constitutional amendment that would have sped up Georgia's transition from a mixed electoral system to a fully proportional system from 2024 to 2020, causing the bill to fail despite GD's support and prolonging a nationwide political crisis.

In 2020, he left GD and created the Progress and Freedom party with fellow businessman Tsezar Chocheli, and merged it within the UNM-led Strength is in Unity electoral bloc, winning a seat in that year's parliamentary election after a campaign that was characterized for a high level of violent incidents.

One of dozens of MPs in boycott, he agreed to rejoin the legislature in May 2021.

Kakha Okriashvili contracted COVID-19 on 2 November 2020.

His net worth has been estimated at 11.3 million GEL in 2020, making him one of the wealthiest members of Parliament.

His name remains linked with at least twelve companies.

He is a co-founding investor of Georgian Beer Company, created by his business and political partner Tsezar Chocheli and one of Georgia's largest beer and soft soda producers.