Opposition Reacts to GD Campaign Messages
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 bringing the United National Movement, “all of its successors and affiliates” to trial and evicting them from the political scene, cracking down on LGBT in the name of upholding traditional values and protecting children, and preparing to change Georgia’s Constitution, since the opportunity to peacefully restore country’s territorial integrity may – allegedly – arise at any time.
We have compiled the reactions from across the Georgian opposition:
Nika Gvaramia, Coalition for Change (Co-chair of the Ahali Party): “Yesterday, we saw one more proof of the Georgian Dream as a party of discord, controversy, and chaos, which has nothing to offer to the Georgian people. We, the Coalition for Change, are not going to discuss what was said by a person who builds glass barriers [to separate him from] the population and from his own team [referring to the bullet-proof glass ‘aquarium’ that protected Ivanishvili during the speech on August 21].”
Mamuka Khazaradze, Strong Georgia (Leader of Lelo party): “I agree with Bidzina [Ivanishvili]; these elections are indeed a referendum, in which the Georgian people must reject poverty, emigration, disgraceful pensions, child malnourishment, unemployment, nepotism, corruption and, above all, the Russian government! […] How many times do we have to see the frightened Bidzina Ivanishvili on the stage, who cannot even read a written text, who talks to people from behind the bulletproof glass aquarium? Our country has never had such a shameful and defeatist government.”
Natia Mezvrishvili, For Georgia party: “There were a lot of tragic things in Georgian Dream’s yesterday’s event – fear (including the fear of each other); fakeness; hopeless people who are ready to run away; corrupt, jaded faces who have been in all [political] camps. Ivanishvili is out of this world just like Saakashvili was in 2012, and he believes that despite it all, he enjoys abundant public confidence.”
Levan Bezhashvili, Unity to Save Georgia (United National Movement party):” Yesterday, the population of Georgia once again saw what an inadequate government Georgia has. How inadequate are the people who have captured the government and now speak in the name of the people and Georgia? We saw the government talking to the people of Georgia through an armored aquarium and offering absolutely nothing new. It proposed to argue about the past again; it proposed violence against the opposition, the abolition of the opposition, the abolition of the media, the abolition of the non-governmental sector, caring only about the preservation of the government.”
More to follow…
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)
