“The plan is particular and without alternative: new elections,” former Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili declared while addressing protesters on Rustaveli Avenue.
Zourabichvili noted that in the coming days, she will present the public with a document outlining the conditions for new elections.
“I believe we are on the right path. What is the right path? Everyone asks what the plan is. The plan is particular and without alternative – new elections. You must have noticed that more and more of our partners are calling for new elections because everyone in the world knows very well that when there is such a deep crisis in a country, where on one side stands a regime that pretends to concede nothing, and on the other side stands society, which will not concede anything because it has nothing to concede, and the deep crisis has continued for four months since the elections, it means there is no other peaceful solution except elections. When there is a crisis, elections mean returning to the people and asking: what is your will? The will of the Georgian people is freedom, independence, and a European future. So these elections will be scheduled, there is no question about it.
What should the plan be? It should be preparation for elections. This preparation involves several issues. One is that we must prepare the conditions for elections, and we are practically ready for this. In the coming days, you will become familiar with a document that presents what the election conditions should be. Second, we must prepare for the elections – today we must prepare commission members and observers, a whole army so that no one can falsify the polls for a second time. This is in our hands and something for all of us to do, and we must start today. Third, I am working on this, we must obtain all kinds of assistance from our most trusted partners so that the forms of falsification they used cannot be used again. This concerns technological elections and many other things. Today, many of our partners are working precisely on election issues, as they understand well that election manipulation and falsification has become Russia’s new strategy, which started from Georgia but will affect other European countries tomorrow and the day after if we do not defeat this strategy today. For this, everyone must study what happened here, and together we must find ways to triumph over this falsification and prevent it. This is also something we must do together. Additionally, what we must do, and I am also involved in this, is to establish more coordination between everyone – political parties, and possibly new political parties. These are the organizations that are with you today, that are in the streets,” Zourabichvili stated.
According to her, there should be only one program for the elections, and that is the Georgian Charter.
“I am directly responsible for ensuring greater coordination to make not only the protest more effective but also our political struggle, which is moving into the spring phase. You also frequently ask what the election program is. I do not know how many political parties will participate in the next elections, and I wish great success to all, to all pro-European parties, but one thing I know is that there can be only one program. This is the Georgian Charter, which states that all Russian laws must be repealed, all prisoners must be freed, we must restore a fair judiciary, we must overcome corruption – everything that needs to be done in the first six months. Later, when we restore the judiciary and legislation to the country, we can expand other programs. When we return the economy to the country, which today is completely halted, and paralyzed, then we can redistribute the country’s resources differently so they are not tailored to one man who brought his half-billion fortune and paintings and other things into the country without paying a single cent to Georgia’s budget. None of you could have done this because the legislation would force you to pay 20 per cent on such imports, whatever the value of the paintings or other property.
This is a country that has been seized by one oligarch, seized by the Russian ruling regime. And if you ask me where I will be? I will be wherever needed, I will be a coordinator, a leader, an ordinary citizen, I will be where you need me,” Zourabichvili declared.
