Federalists’ Bokeria: Those who sow despair unknowingly aid Ivanishvili regime; peaceful protest has no alternative

“The strategy outlined by the opposition is to mobilise the public in peaceful, sustained, and widespread protests that Ivanishvili’s regime will ultimately be unable to withstand,” stated Giga Bokeria, one of the leaders of the Federalists Party.

Bokeria commented on a post published on social media by Nika Gvaramia, one of the leaders of the Opposition Alliance, in which Gvaramia wrote: “The time has come to state one’s position openly and unequivocally. There will be no more vague and murky texts, no more ‘what can I do, I’ll lose my funding otherwise.’ Let everyone say clearly what they have decided and why.”

Bokeria drew on historical precedent, noting that more than thirty years ago, under the Soviet and Russian communist regime, free elections became possible because the civic climate ahead of those elections broke the regime’s repressive apparatus.

“This is our task: peaceful protest. We intend to call upon all those who share these objectives to gather on May 26. That is our Independence Day, and independence must be defended today as well, precisely because of this regime’s actions, which place our statehood itself in jeopardy. We then intend to continue the campaign we have already launched across the whole country to reach every citizen, including those who hold different views, those who have not yet seen a credible alternative, and to tell them our vision: how we intend to lead the country out of the dead end into which this regime has driven it,” Bokeria declared.

He further stated that all those who sow despair in the course of this process, including, perhaps, people of genuine sincerity, are, whether deliberately or inadvertently, serving the interests of the Ivanishvili regime, because this path has no alternative.

“Our own history is our guide. Not in the sense that events will repeat themselves exactly, but in the sense of how the Georgian people achieved a breakthrough at the ballot box against the Russian Soviet regime. What is needed is for the will of the majority of society to be expressed at such a level that the repressive apparatus can no longer resist it and is compelled to yield power through free and fair elections.

Regimes of this type must be defeated at elections before the elections themselves. If that does not happen, you become mere decoration within the authoritarian system, and that is not in the interests of the Opposition Alliance, the Federalists, or of society at large. It is in society’s interest to achieve, through peaceful protest, through conviction, through sheer tenacity if need be, and through bringing a vision for the future to every citizen, the conditions under which free elections become possible, and to secure a breakthrough through the ballot,” declared Giga Bokeria.