Dimitri Samkharadze

Dimitri Samkharadze (; born 16 May 1981) is a Georgian politician and a member of the Georgian Dream party who has served as a member of the Georgian parliament since 2016, Regional Secretary of Georgian Dream since 2020, and as Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Majority from December 2019 to December 2020.

A self-described "soldier of the Georgian Dream", Dito Samkharadze is famous for starting fights in parliament, starting fights on social media, as well as insulting and threatening opposition lawmakers, activists, and protestors. Furthermore, he has widely used sexist and homophobic language on his opponents.

Early life There is little information available about Dito Samkharadze's life before his political career. However, his business career is known. From 2001 to 2002 he was the project manager of "LTD IVI oy FINLAND", in 2003 he was the manager of “5 Line production რეკორდ”, From 2003 to 2005 he was the financial manager of "Leviko", from 2004 to 2009 he was the purchasing manager of a nitrogen plant, in 2008 he worked in "Baltic tank.oy", and from 2009 to 2011 he was the representative of the Finish company "Vitakan.oy" in the Caucasus.

He finished Community College "Orientiri" in 2014 when he was 33, which means he didn't have higher education up until then. Despite this in 2012 he was already working in the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs of Georgia. In 2015 he started working in the Children and Youth National Center. In 2016 he further finished the Russian Academy International Institute of State Service and Management with a major in Personnel Management. After significant protests the party chose to withdraw the legislation. Dito Samkharadze was the only one to vote in favor of it. He later defended his vote by saying that it was an accident and not done out of his principles.

Controversies Dito Samkharadze is one of the most controversial figures in Georgian Dream, with his constant swearing, insults, and threats frequently making news.

In November 2019, he published a statement where he physically threatened a protestor and asked his followers to find out their identity for making a negative post about Bidzina Ivanishvili and his son Bera Ivanishvili. He gave 24 hours to his opponents to find out the identity of the perpetrator of the alleged threats, otherwise, he threatened to "drink the blood" of whom he ironically referred to as "peaceful protestors". Dito Samkharadze has defended his often controversial remarks by saying “I’ve never insulted anyone first! It was always when someone insulted one of the members of the group or their family, I responded with, yes, swearing.”

On 31 May 2024, Dito Samkharadze published a video that showed vandalism of civil society offices, political party offices, and critical media offices. The post read "We won't ignore or forgive you for even the smallest thing" and "Whatever you do against us, our response will be a thousand times worse, painful and effective". A day prior, he had posted a photo of graffiti saying ‘Slave Samkharadze’ on Facebook, and promised to respond in a ‘more bitter way, on a larger scale, and in better quality’. This has been widely seen as a confirmation of Georgian Dream's direct involvement in the so-called Titushky attacks.

His opponents have labeled his education insufficient to serve in the parliament with them questioning how he could work for a Georgian ministry and at the same time study in Russia. The university he went to has been further questioned for its ties with Vladimir Putin.