A "Pope of Corruption"? Alexander Kartozia as the new Georgian ambassador to Berlin

The appointment of Alexander Kartozia as the new Georgian ambassador to Berlin must be understood as a painful disregard for the tens of thousands of Georgian citizens who suffered from the rampant corruption in the education system in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Kartozia may present himself today as a philologist and scholar, but his political career bears the dark stains of his tenure as Minister of Education from 1998 to the end of 2003 .

This was no era of minor offenses. It was a time of rampant corruption that undermined Georgia's education system from the ground up. Corruption robbed families of their money and, far worse, students of their education. Bribes, rather than academic merit, determined access to prestigious schools. Virtually all observers agree that the law faculty at Tbilisi State University was a particular center of corruption. The amounts involved were not small—in some cases, families had to pay thousands of dollars to secure their children a place at university or a proper degree.

During Kartozia's time, honest, brilliant academics were bullied and pushed out, while a generation grew up that could buy their way into higher education without ever having seen the inside of a university. The profound, negative effects of this systemic destruction are still felt in Georgia today . Some of the most despicable figures in the Georgian Dream are graduates from these corrupt times.

Can Kartozia be called the "Pope of Corruption"? Critics on Georgia's social media argue that Kartozia presided over the plundering of the education system for years. One could concede that Kartozia was a weak pope who perhaps would have liked to reform his department. However, such a comprehensive reform never took place. Nor was there any evidence of Kartozia making a real effort to do so.

Kartozia, who was investigated after leaving office in 2004 and then left the country to take up a position at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), has to this day failed to take any political responsibility for the desolate legacy of his five years in office.

There has been no public reckoning or even an apology for the massive educational theft and the lasting damage he inflicted, or at least allowed, on Georgian youth and society. Instead, Kartozia seems to continue to assert his infallibility. He and his wife are primarily known for their aggressive attacks on subsequent reformers who subsequently eliminated corruption from the education system.

At the end of 2024, Rusudan Gorgiladze, Kartozia's wife, once again attracted unpleasant attention . In light of the blatant police violence against demonstrators, Gorgiladze polemically attacked then-President Salome Zourabichvili on the propaganda channel Imedi because she had – rightly – criticized the unbridled brutality of the crackdown. Gorgiladze continues to be active in propaganda for the Georgian regime. (Another indication of unapologetic nepotism? Rusudan Kartozia served as Deputy Minister of Education from 2000 to the end of 2003 , directly under her husband.)

The German capital should not accept this appointment without reflection, no matter how much Gorgiladze might try to portray herself as the host . He is now accredited in Germany, but Kartozia's past remains a political problem . Alexander Kartozia should be perceived in Berlin not only as a formal representative of a country, but above all as a figure with an unresolved past, and should be confronted by the German press with critical questions about his questionable work and the damage he has caused in Georgia.