Ex-President Saakashvili: What is wrong with the party representatives in Batumi? If you cannot defend yourselves with smarter arguments, stop playing the dictatorship’s game and go home

“What is wrong with the party representatives in Batumi? Let us separate the crimes of individuals from the parties,” former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili wrote on social media.

Saakashvili said Zaza Bibilashvili’s absence has been felt during the ongoing hearings at the Constitutional Court in Batumi, urging him to return to the proceedings.

“Excuse me, whose crimes are you conceding as established fact: the wreath I laid at Kaczyński’s funeral, hosting the President of Ukraine and Hillary [Clinton], four suits and a coat, or even the neutralisation of Vazagashvili and the Aprasidzes, and then asking for the party to be distanced from all of it? Well done to you! If you cannot defend yourselves with smarter arguments, stop taking part in the dictatorship’s game, stop getting bogged down in phoney legal scholasticism, and go home! That is my view!

Zaza Bibilashvili’s absence from those proceedings is glaringly obvious, though Ana Tsitlidze was right to demand that each ‘case’ be addressed separately. Zaza, come back immediately, show them some class, and remind them that we are not talking about some quasi-criminal outfit, but the most successful group of politicians in Georgia’s history, one that, despite every obstacle and countless betrayals, built a successful Georgian state!” Saakashvili wrote.