The relations between the new cabinet with the outgoing President Saakashvili and his allies remained tense. The year saw controversies surrounding the detentions and trials on various charges of several members of the previous government and the UNM, including the ex-ministers Bacho Akhalaia and Ivane Merabishvili, and the incumbent mayor of Tbilisi, Gigi Ugulava, who was suspended by the court from his elected office. Human rights record was marred by the violence against anti-homophobia activists in May.
The new government repeatedly stressed their adherence to Georgia's pro-Western foreign policy course and intention to improve relations with Russia, which had fought a war with Georgia over breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008. Despite verbal overtures and meeting between Georgian and Russian diplomats, the relations between the two countries showed no significant improvement. Georgia protested against installment of barbwire fences by the Russian military along the South Ossetian demarcation line. In November, Georgia initialed an association agreement with the European Union and won praise from NATO for reforms.
January 5 — The Tbilisi City Court sentences the former Minister of Justice Zurab Adeishvili to a pretrial detention in absentia, responding to the charges of "organizing inhuman treatment of inmates" filed by the Prosecutor's Office.[2]
January 13 — Nearly 200 people considered political prisoners by Georgia's new parliament are released under an amnesty.[3]
January 23 — Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili relieves Defense Minister Irakli Alasania of his duties as Deputy Prime Minister, citing Alasania's "narrow-circle" discussion of his plans for the 2013 presidential election.[4][5]
January 24 — Georgia's Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili has a brief conversation with his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, this being the first meeting between the Georgian and Russian heads of the governments after the war of 2008.[7]
January 24 — Armenian activist Vahagn Chakhalyan (under arrest since 2008) released from prison under amnesty law.[8]
February
February 7 — President Saakashvili's annual state of the nation address in the Parliament, scheduled for February 8, is postponed by the Georgian Dream parliamentary majority amid controversy over the Georgian Dream-initiated constitutional amendments to restrict presidential power. Saakashvili decides to deliver his speech from the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia.[9]
February 8 — Some 300-strong group of protesters physically assault members of President Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement party outside the National Library, forcing the president to deliver his annual state of the nation address from the presidential palace.[9]
March
The Parliament session hall in Kutaisi in April 2013.
March 4 — The meeting between President Saakashvili and Prime Minister Ivanishvili in Tbilisi for talks about their differences fail to bring tangible results.[10]
March 4 — The Parliament of Georgia adopts a resolution, drafted jointly by the rivaling Georgian Dream and United National Movement factions, reiterating Georgia's commitment to its pro-Western foreign policy course.[11]
March 21 — The Parliament of Georgia unanimously passes constitutional amendment stripping the President of his right to appoint the new government without Parliament's approval. In a preceding non-binding test vote President Saakashvili's allies in the parliament vote against the measure to prove the Georgian Dream majority do not have the 2/3 majority required to change the constitution on their own. The amendments are passed with the third and final reading on March 25, 2013.[12][13]
April
April 19 — Over 10,000 people gather in downtown Tbilisi in support of President Saakashvili and his United National Movement in a first mass rally since the party's defeat at the October 2012 parliamentary elections.[14]
April 27 — The Georgian Dream candidates win all three vacant seats in the parliament of Georgia in the by-elections in three single-mandate constituencies in Nadzaladevi (Tbilisi), Baghdati, and Samtredia.[15]
May
The Afghanistan deployment ceremony for the 42nd and 33rd infantry battalions. March 22, 2013.
May 12 — First Deputy Interior Minister and member of the ruling Georgian Dream coalition, Gela Khvedelidze, is arrested over charges of breach of privacy related to the case involving leaking of a secretly recorded threesome sex video, purportedly featuring one of his critics.[16]
May 21 – Ivane Merabishvili, the United National Movement party secretary general and Georgia's former Prime Minister, and Zurab Tchiaberashvili, governor of Kakheti, are arrested in connection to investigation into alleged misspending of GEL 5.2 million public funds on their party activists during the 2012 election campaign, leading to accusations of political vendetta leveled by the United National Movement against the Ivanishvili government.[21]
June
Deep Purple performing at the Tbilisi Open Air 2013.
June 6 – Seven Georgian servicemen are killed and nine wounded in an insurgent attack with a truck bomb on the ISAF base in Shir Ghazay, Afghanistan.[23]
June 13 – The Interior Ministry of Georgia announces it has "thwarted an attempted terrorist act at its stage of preparation" and arrests two suspects, the "foreign citizens" Mikail Kadiev and Rizvan Omarov.[24]
June 27 – NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen visits Tbilisi, expressing his concern over recent arrests of the former government officials and urging Ivanishvili's government to avoid selective justice.[25]
July
July 4 – The Georgian police seizes 116 kg heroin and arrests two foreign nationals in one of the country's biggest ever drug hauls.[26]
July 12 – Georgia and Vanuatu sign an agreement on establishing diplomatic and consular relations, ending the uncertainty over Vanuatu's recognition of breakaway Abkhazia.[27]
August 26 – Tensions erupt in southern Samtskhe-Javakheti region as the government forcibly dismantles a minaret in the Muslim Georgian village of Chela, Adigeni Municipality, citing lack of proper building authorization.[29] The minaret would be reinstalled after the permission has been granted by the municipality council in November 2013.[30]
September
A Georgian villager is left beyond the barbwire fence installed by the Russian troops along the South Ossetia–Georgia contact line. September 2013
September 9 – Georgia holds its first ever air show at the military airstrip of the Tbilisi Aircraft Manufacturing factory in Tbilisi to mark the anniversary of Georgian-American aviation engineer Alexander Kartveli's birth.[31]
September 25 – President Saakashvili condemns what he calls the continuing annexation of Georgian lands by Russian troops while addressing the United Nations General Assembly as the Russian military continues to install barbed-wire fences to mark out new areas claimed by breakaway South Ossetia.[32]
October
October 3 – Georgia's Interior Ministry says that a Kyrgyz national, Samar Chokutaev, an IT specialist for a Russian mobile-phone operator in breakaway Abkhazia, has been charged in absentia on terrorism-related charges. The man is identified by the Georgian police as the author of a "jihad threat" video against Georgian troops circulating on the Internet in June.[33]
October 15 – Georgia's former defense minister under Saakashvili, Davit Kezerashvili, is detained on Interpol warrant in France on corruption charges, the Georgian government seeking his extradition.[34]
Inauguration ceremony of President Giorgi Margvelashvili on November 17, 2013.
November 2 – Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili reiterates his decision to resign later in November, naming 31-year-old Interior Minister Irakli Gharibashvili as the Georgian Dream's choice for prime minister.[36]
November 3 – The outgoing President Saakashvili pardons his government's former member, Bachana Akhalaia, convicted of inhuman treatment of inmates which led to a bloody prison riot in March 2006. Akhalaia still remains in prison, pending trial for power abuse charges.[37]
November 7 – Georgia's chief prosecutor Archil Kbilashvili announces his resignation, citing differences on reforms within the government of Georgia.[38]
November 17 – Giorgi Margvelashvili is sworn in as the fourth President of Georgia. With this, a new constitution, significantly reducing new president's power at the expense of increasing prime minister's authority, comes into effect.[39]
November 20 – The Parliament of Georgia approves the new Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and his cabinet with 93 votes to 19.[40]
December 4 – A contentious government-proposed local self-governance reform plan triggers more controversy after the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, denounces it as a threat to Georgia's integrity.[44]
December 7 – Mikheil Saakashvili, the former President of Georgia, addresses the pro-Europe protesters in support of their cause in Kyiv in Ukrainian.[45]
December 22 – The Tbilisi City Court suspends from office the Mayor of Tbilisi, Gigi Ugulava, member of the formerly ruling and now the opposition UNM party, who is charged with misspending of GEL 48.18 million of public funds.[46]
December 30 – Chief Prosecutor Otar Partskhaladze resigns following controversy surrounding his past criminal record in Germany.[47][48]
