Georgian PM Garibashvili Resigns, Gives No Reason

FILE - Georgia's Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili speaks during a news conference with the European Commission president following their working session at EU headquarters in Brussels on Feb. 3, 2014.

Georgia's Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili resigned Wednesday without giving any reason.

"I took the decision to leave my post," he said in a nationally televised address. "All posts are temporary. Only God and the motherland are eternal. We have returned freedom to our citizens."

Garibashvili had been prime minister since 2013.

Georgian political experts speculate he stepped down to help his Georgian Dream party regain its lost popularity before next year's parliamentary election.

After years of growth, Georgia's economy has slowed down considerably since Georgian Dream took power.

President Giorgi Margvelashvili has a week to ask a new candidate to be chosen by Georgian Dream to put together a new government.

The opposition said Garibashvili's resignation would make no difference, calling him and Georgian Dream puppets of billionaire businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili.