Tengiz Sigua

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Tengiz Sigua (b. 1943) is a Georgian politician and former Prime Minister of the country.

He is a metallurgical engineer by profession and has entered politics on the eve of the Soviet Union’s collapse. In 1990, he headed the Rustaveli Society of All Georgia and led an expert group of the bloc “Round Table-Free Georgia”. Following the first multiparty elections in Georgia, he was elected Chair of the Ministers’ Council of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic on 14 November 1990.

He was the Prime Minister in Zviad Gamsakhurdia’s government from 15 November 1990 to 18 August 1991. However, Gamsakhurdia's dictatorial tendencies created a feud in his executive team. As a result, Sigua resigned in August 1991. Along with the National Guard leader Tengiz Kitovani, he became a leader of an uneasy opposition, which launched a violent coup against the President in December 1991-January 1992. After Gamsakhurdia’s fall, he became Prime Minister in the Georgian interim government (Military Council, later transformed into the State Council and joined by Eduard Shevardnadze) on 6 January 1992.

He was forced to resign on 6 August 1993 after parliament twice rejected the budget submitted by it. Later he was MP, led the National Liberation Front as an oppositional party to Shevardnadze’s government and backed the military solution of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. In January 1995, Sigua and Kitovani organized an attempted march of 1,400 armed Georgian refugees into the rebel region of Abkhazia. The two men were arrested for having organized an unlawful armed group. Released a few months later, Sigua has never returned to an active political life.

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Preceded by Soviet era	Prime Minister of Georgia 1990-1991	Succeeded by Bessarion Gugushvili
Preceded by Bessarion Gugushvili	Prime Minister of Georgia 1992-1993	Succeeded by Otar Patsatsia