Ex-President Saakashvili: Years will come and go, but in the end an idea always triumphs over moneyed evil

“Years will come and go, but the reality remains unchanged: on one side stands Ivanishvili with his gang, his wealth, and Russian backing, and on the other side stand we, with our steadfast integrity, our connection to the people, our vision for a prosperous Georgia, and our proven track record,” wrote former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili on social media.

Saakashvili outlined several steps that he claimed form the standard blueprint for hatching fake ‘new politicians’.

“The blueprint for hatching ‘new politicians’ under an oligarchic dictatorship:

Step one: Declare yourself a fresh face, eagerly awaited by a public exhausted by old politicians. In the same breath, equate the UNM with Georgian Dream, stressing that ‘Misha is the past’.

Step two: Find a source of funding, typically one of Ivanishvili’s satellites, providing money on the dictator’s orders.

Step three: Use that money to buy airtime on struggling opposition channels forced to sell space, that will then give you far broader coverage than someone like Saakashvili, Khabeishvili, or Japaridze. Hire respectable talking heads to shower your party with praise as the ‘sole saviour’.

Step four: Announce that you are going out among the ordinary people to study their problems, broadcasting live from the regions every minute with an expression as if you have just discovered America through your contact with the public.

Step five: Call for unity and form an ‘opposition’ alliance with similar business projects.

And finally: Execute the very act for which all preceding steps were taken: denounce election boycotts, ‘engage’ Georgian Dream, and grant credibility to the electoral farce.

This is the circus they constantly parade before our eyes. The good news, however, is that the public no longer falls for it. They tolerate this spectacle, just as they tolerate so much else under a regime that has descended into a hereditary dictatorship, but these ‘fresh faces’ poured straight out of the oligarch’s test tube cannot gain traction and never will.

In truth, Ivanishvili’s strategy was simple from the outset: split and weaken the United National Movement by fueling individual ambitions with financial backing. Yet he still distrusts former UNM members, which is why he creates parallel business-political parties, a creation of a pseudo-opposition that he announced long ago.

Years will come and go, but the core reality remains unchanged: on one side stands Ivanishvili with his henchmen, his money, and Russian backing; on the other side stand we, with our steadfast integrity, our connection to the people, our vision for a prosperous Georgia, and our proven track record. Ultimately, an idea always triumphs over moneyed evil, even if we are naturally in a hurry to see it happen. I am convinced that monumental change is right at our doorstep,” wrote Saakashvili.