For Georgia’s MP Sharashidze: We are accused of backing the 4 October protest despite distancing ourselves from provocation

“The public will once again witness at the Constitutional Court how Georgian Dream’s absurd and fabricated lawsuit collapses under the weight of sound legal arguments,” declared MP Giorgi Sharashidze, member of the Gakharia For Georgia party.

Sharashidze insisted his party was tacked onto the lawsuit at the very last minute, artificially and without any supporting evidence.

“This will naturally mark another defeat for Georgian Dream, as the public watches live on television the exposure of their deceitful rhetoric claiming to fight for the nation’s salvation. Their actions are exceedingly damaging and dangerous to the country, as their sole objective is to enforce single-party rule, a dictatorship, and a hollow facade of democracy with artificially created opposition parties. Having usurped all branches of power, the ruling party has now decided to appoint the opposition itself and strip the Georgian people of the right to vote for their chosen representatives.

Even in the best-case scenario, should they permit the Georgian public to vote for an opposition party, they intend to handpick which entities are allowed to stand. The public will see live on air how Georgian Dream’s absurd legal claims collapse like a house of cards. Our party has not breached a single article of the Constitution.

We are falsely accused of participating in and supporting the 4 October demonstration, despite being the only political party to explicitly distance itself from the provocation from day one. In fact, Georgian Dream gave far more coverage to the 4 October incident because it served their political interests and was engineered to do so. Meanwhile, we went door to door and walked the streets urging people not merely to vote for our party, but to engage in the democratic electoral process as a whole. The claims surrounding 4 October are just one example of how baseless these allegations against our party truly are,” Sharashidze said.