The Rightists tried to thwart the bill on higher education but received negative results. Despite their opposition, parliament approved the document by a margin of 143 to 10 at the first hearing on November 26. In addition, Pikria Chikhradze and her fellow party members had to withstand mockery from the Minister of Education and parliamentary majority members. The Rightists knew full well that they would not be able to block the bill but still made the attempt.

They even tried to employ “outer forces” in order to achieve their goal – at the plenary session they introduced an address by Parmen Margvelashvili and Anzor Khelashvili, pro-rectors of Tbilisi State University, to parliament. The letter reads: “the decadence of science in higher education will trigger devastating results in the whole education system.”

In addition, Chikhradze sought to persuade the MPs that if the bill was adopted the university would face the danger of diarchy: the rector would become a formal figure and the chancellor would acquire strong leverages.

“Then where is the autonomy if we are going to determine everything for the universities?” Chikhradze asked. She at the same time required parliament to accredit the higher education institutions.

The opposition’s reserve completely expired with her speech and the Rightist opposition became the mockery of parliament.

According to Kakha Lomaia, the Minister of Education, if we follow the advice of the Rightists the country will appear in the gravest of situations.

“None of the countries of the world accredits universities. We would not be able to do this no matter how hard we tried – the legislative body would not manage to accredit all of the 181 higher education institutions even it had nothing else to do,” stated the minister.

Lomaia laughed at the threat of the New Rights that they have collected 107.000 signatures demanding his resignation.

“The political force that had such a large electorate in Aslan Abashidze’s Adjara and the Russian city of Svetlogorski should not find it difficult to collect so many signatures,” stated Lomaia with irony.

In addition to political weakness, Lomaia joked about the competence of the Rightists.

“We have been threatening to present an alternative bill for five months, however, I have not seen anything more than a scrap of paper full of absurd notes. It seems your nerves let you down as well because you are incompetent,” the minister left parliament’s tribune victorious.

The “raid” on the Rightists started by the minister was continued by parliamentary majority members.

“The New Rights have none of the notes towards the draft law. They refer to cheap speculation in order to appear on TV screens,” stated Davit Zurabishvili.

“All the issues you have presented are envisaged in the bill. You debate over items that are not in fact disputable,” said Nodar Grigalashvili, who was surprised at the New Rights’ “spirit” as well as Margvelashvili’s position.

“I asked him during the committee hearing if he supported the bill. He said he was delighted with everything except the issue of TSU funding. I cannot understand why they say one thing at the committee session and another in front of the press and television,” Grigalashvili stated.

In turn the Minister of Education confirmed that the TSU representatives had express their dissatisfaction with the bill neither during the committee hearing nor during the meeting with the president.

“They seem to have confided their opinions only to paper,” Lomaia said sarcastically in regards to his opponents.

Despite the minister’s “triumphant note” in parliament, certain local difficulties are still expected during the second hearing of the bill on higher education.