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Ivanishvili Hammers Home the Message of Political Revenge, Dangles Hope of Salvation

Bidzina Ivanishvili, flanked by the Georgian Dream leadership, addressed supporters from Mtskheta, Georgia’s ancient capital and religious center, on August 21. They hammered home the campaign messages articulated in the ruling party’s recent statement. They call for evicting the United National Movement, “all of its successors and affiliates” from the political scene, cracking down on LGBT in the name of upholding traditional values and protecting children, and preparing to change Georgia’s constitutional order for the potential, but possible Constitutional changes that may be required to restore country’s territorial integrity.

“Ending UNM” and “banning LGBT propaganda” have figured in the GD campaign agenda from the outset. However, the point about territorial integrity is relatively new. Ivanishvili elaborated: “Under the conditions of restoring territorial integrity, the country’s governance system and territorial order must be revised, which is impossible without amending the Constitution.” Ivanishvili claimed that the opposition, referred to as the “collective UNM,” will “necessarily act contrary to the national interests and create obstacles to restoring the territorial integrity, which we should not allow.” This is why, Ivanishvili argued, GD must have the constitutional majority.

Regarding the ban on the opposition, which the GD and all its leaders habitually refer to as the “collective UNM,” Ivanishvili said that the GD needed the constitutional majority “to rid the country of this serious disease once and for all” and vowed to initiate the legal process after the elections to outlaw “all satellite and successor parties” of the UNM.

“The October 26 elections must turn into Nuremberg trials [series of criminal justice proceedings held by the victorious Allies against the surviving high ranking officials of the defeated Nazi German state – eds.] for the UNM, where the constitutional majority of the Georgian people will deliver a proper verdict to this bunch of politicians without a motherland, the network of foreign agents who are ready to sign any anti-state order,” Ivanishvili said. “Healthy elections will be held in Georgia only when the collective UNM in the Georgian political system is replaced by patriotic political forces,” he added.

Ivanishvili also addressed the crackdown on LGBT rights. He said that “the so-called civil partnership of same-sex people, adoption of a child by the LGBT couple, sex change operations, LGBT propaganda in the media and schools, etc.” must be banned by the Constitution. “Anti-Christian forces are trying to erase all identities of nations, states, and individuals,” he said, adding that the goal of such forces is “to turn a person into a being without dignity or morality.”

Ivanishvili echoed the GD’s approach to the elections as a referendum, a choice between “war and peace,” “slavery and independence,” “moral degradation and Christian values,” and “the dark past and the bright European future” of the country.

He also said that salvation is near; Georgia must “hold out only a few months, not allow chaos and the opening of a second front [against Russia] in Georgia, keep the country [united] and once this war [in Ukraine] ends, no one and nothing will threaten Georgia’s national interests.”

Ivanishvili concluded: “The more votes Georgian Dream gets on October 26, the better the peace in our country will be strengthened, the peace in November and December, and beyond that, the peace in the next four years.”

His speech ended with a quote from GD’s political council statement made yesterday, August 20: “To those for whom the country is precious, [we call upon you] put everything aside and come to the elections, put aside all narrow political issues, because this election is not about politics, but about saving the country.”

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This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)

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