GD Leaders New Year Addresses: After 2024 “Victory,” 2025 of Unity, Family, Traditions
With the arrival of 2025, the leaders of Georgian Dream, including honorary president Bidzina Ivanishvili, issued New Year’s addresses that underlined the numerous “victories” achieved under the Georgian Dream rule. The speeches were marked by a conciliatory and solemn tone while evading the subject of the deepening political crisis, international isolation, repression, and the ongoing protests in many Georgian cities. Instead, the motives of family, traditions, peace, love, and unity dominated.
This was the first televised address for Mikheil Kavelashvili, who was picked and approved as president by the GD-only electoral college in a non-competitive process. He kept it brief, just under one-and-a-half minutes. In keeping with a conservative image, he congratulated the nation in the traditions of the festive toast, withing “peace, happiness, and joy.” He also wished a Happy New Year to “Abkhazian and Ossetian brothers and sisters.” “May the joy of the New Year be the foundation for our shared, happy future,” Kavelashvili said, wishing for a “triumph over evil.” He said that the unity of Georgian society around the “homeland should serve as an example to politicians so that they, too, can find common ground for a better future for our country.” Striking a paternalistic tone, he said the societal unity must be based on love and mutual respect, “reflected in the traditional family relationship between grandparents and their grandchildren.” “May the power of love triumph over all the temptations that could divide and oppose us,” he concluded, ending, “May the Lord protect us.”
As a head of government, Irakli Kobakhidze has released his New Year address – just over three minutes – on his Facebook page, congratulating each Georgian, Abkhazia, and Samachablo [Tskhinvali region] inhabitants and compatriots abroad. He said 2024 was “filled with many challenges” and argued, “Georgia had to continue its unequal struggle to protect the peace, independence, and national identity; it had to fight against the hatred imposed from outside.” Nonetheless, Kobakhidze claimed that Georgia: “emerged victorious in every battle.” Among such victories, he referred to the parliamentary elections as a “referendum,” where “the Georgian people firmly stood for freedom, independence, peace, dignity, prosperity, and Georgia’s bright European future!” He did not mention that the process and results of these elections were challenged at home and abroad.
Again, skirting the issue of extreme police violence, he pointedly thanked law enforcement, the army, the judiciary, and the prosecutor’s service. And did not forget to compliment the clergy: “I also extend special thanks to our Mother Church, the Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia, and every clergyman whose invaluable contributions preserve and uphold Georgia’s national identity and values” and expressed gratitude to “all religious denominations for their efforts to safeguard our traditional values.”
The GD Prime Minister expressed hope that 2025 will be “the year of the defeat of hatred and the triumph of love.” He concluded, “Where Georgians love one another, no external enemy can defeat us.”
In breaking with the long tradition, the European flag did not figure in Kobakhidze’s background (but did both for Kavelashvili and Papuashvili).
The message of the speaker of the GD rump Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, was packed with historical lyricism in its timeline of slightly over two minutes. He stressed: “Our homeland’s historical path has never been easy, but in the past few years, Georgia and the world have gone through an incredibly difficult period: a global pandemic, devastating wars around us, and dangerous geopolitical confrontations.” He said: “I especially wish two things for each of you and all of Georgia – peace and unity.”
Papuashvili stressed: “The past years have especially demonstrated the value of peace, firmness, wisdom, caution and prudence.” In his words, the government showed in 2024 what it means to carry a “responsibility” to protect “the treasures bestowed by God and left by our ancestors – our country its history, past, present, and future.” “Therefore, our only right and wise choice is the politics of peace,” he stressed. “We all know that success in Georgia, alongside peace, comes from unity,” Papuashvili insisted.
According to the Speaker, 2024 was “a year of many victories” for “strengthening of the country’s sovereignty, for strengthening its national identity, for peace.” In 2025, Papuashvili argued, “We must succeed for our prosperity and the reunification of our country.”
Bidzina Ivanishvili published a separate New Year message on the Georgian Dream’s official social media page and, for the first time, co-signed it with his wife, Ekaterine Khvedelidze (in another first, she was referred to as Ekaterine Ivanishvili). The couple stated their wish that in 2025, “we have the strength to be worthy heirs of our noble ancestors – a people who honor our past and, with loyalty to our homeland, create a happy future for our country!”
The couple also invoked the concept of unity: “May our unshakable unity give us strength that will not allow anyone to stop our firm steps! Steps that will serve to build the strength and independence of our country and our people”.
Similarly to other GD representatives, the honorary chair of the Georgian Dream and his spouse maintained that 2024 was a year “full of challenges and victories” and that the Georgian people have once again proven that “they are wise and resilient.” “We have shown the world once again that we stand by ourselves and that we will decide how to guide Georgia on the path of peace and success.” “Let us prove together that with tireless work, love for one another, and true patriotism, our country will be able to shine and establish a worthy place in the world!” the couple stated.
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