TBILISI: Georgia's parliament on Wednesday voted in acting Finance Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze as the country's new premier and approved a "temporary" cabinet which he intends to reshuffle as part of liberal reforms.
Lawmakers voted 99 to 6 to appoint Bakhtadze as prime minister, a week after his predecessor Giorgi Kvirikashvili stepped down amid mass protests that exposed a dramatic drop in his government's popularity.
Addressing MPs ahead of the vote, the 36-year-old former business executive Bakhtadze said Georgia will pursue efforts to become a full member of the European Union and NATO.
"We will be consistent on the path of full integration into the European Union," he said, adding that NATO membership was "a crucial task of Georgia's foreign policy and is vital for the country's security and stable development."
Georgia's bid to forge closer ties with the West has long angered arch-foe Moscow with which Tbilisi fought and lost a brief but bloody war in 2008 over breakaway provinces Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
As part of his liberal reforms agenda, Bakhtadze promised to cut the number of ministries from the current 14 to 11, as well as proposing a fresh cabinet for parliamentary approval in roughly three weeks.
"Small government will allow us to implement our ambitious reforms," Bakhtadze said.
Last week, he promised, "fundamental and innovative reforms, to create a new economic model that will affect every Georgian citizen."