In the Georgian cities of Batumi and Zugdidi, yearly budgets were approved despite opposition

| News, Georgia

As demonstrators and police battled outside, the local councils of Batumi and Zugdidi adopted their separate budgets for 2022. The ratification procedure was met with protests from opposition parties, who claimed that the existing city council periods were coming to an end.

The Batumi city council adopted an annual budget of 252 million dollars until 2022. The motion was supported by 14 of the council's 25 members, while opposition members chose to boycott the meeting, claiming that the council "has no right to approve the budget" because they were elected in 2017, and would be replaced soon. Georgia's ruling Georgian Dream party lost its majority in the Batumi city council in the 2021 municipal elections.

The Georgia Central Election Commission stated on Thursday that the first sessions of freshly elected local councils would begin on December 3rd across the state.

Mirdat Kamadadze, a municipal council member from the opposition United National Movement party (UNM), dumped a chemical solution at the city council's meeting in an effort to interrupt the session prior to the budget's adoption.

The meeting was only interrupted for a few minutes before being resumed once the spill had been cleaned up.

Four people were detained outside the Supreme Court of Adjara, where the municipal council session was being conducted, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Tensions were also rising in Zugdidi, with protests taking place outside the Zugdidi Regional Administration office, with opposition city council members echoing statements made by their Batumi counterparts.

The Zugdidi Council approved a $47 million yearly budget.

Following clashes between law officers and demonstrators, two people were detained, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Member of Zugdidi City Council and chair of its UNM faction Ana Tsitlidze claims she was injured while she was attempting to write a slogan in front of the building.

“I was trying to write ‘slaves’ and so they broke my finger,” she told reporters.

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