Giorgi Gakharia, the former Prime Minister of Georgia and a contender for mayor of Tbilisi has demanded that the Prosecutor General's Office investigate the allegations levelled against him by Irakli Kobakhidze, the head of the ruling Georgian Dream party.

Recently, Kobakhidze has publicly stated several times that Gakharia is using drugs. He called the ex-prime minister a "cocaine man" and argued that Gakharia became addicted to drugs after he stepped down as prime minister in February.

The documents were submitted to the investigative body by members of the For Georgia party, Gakharia's associates - Anna Buchukuri and Mikhail Daushvili. The Gakharia party demands that the Prosecutor General's Office immediately start an investigation and interrogate Kobakhidze.

“We turned to the General Prosecutor's Office with a demand to conduct an objective, transparent, full and effective investigation of those absolutely irresponsible, groundless statements that we hear from the head of the Dream organisation Irakli Kobakhidze in connection with Giorgi Gakharia. When it is confirmed that these accusations are unfounded, then undoubtedly, the question of Irakli Kobakhidze's responsibility for libel should arise,” Daushvili told.

A drug test is not required to run for mayor.

Despite this, in early September, the current mayor of the capital, Kakha Kaladze, offered other candidates for mayor be tested.

Kaladze passed a test on September 6 but did not publish his results.

Gakharia responded to the initiative, but took and passed a drug test at the Austrian clinic Rudolfinerhaus, explaining that he did not trust the local expertise.

On September 18, Gakharia published the results of his testing, which showed that no banned substances were found in his blood.

The rest of the candidates did not support Kaladze's initiative, saying that this issue is irrelevant to the public.