Gakharia party will leave Parliament if banned, says faction leader Kereselidze

“The decision the Constitutional Court is to deliver has already been taken, as ordered by the government. The court sessions are just a procedural formality that has to be gone through,” said MP Shalva Kereselidze, chair of the For Georgia parliamentary faction.

Kereselidze said the party had been added to the lawsuit artificially and by force.

“By any argument, it is incomprehensible why we were added to this lawsuit. At the hearing, we ask questions and ask the judge what we are accused of, and they can’t tell us. Nor can Georgian Dream’s representatives. They say they’ll tell us later. That is why we asked for the lawsuit to be heard separately. It should have been clear, explicit and understandable what the government is accusing us of,” Kereselidze said.

He noted that none of the party’s 12 seats in the Georgian Parliament is single-member constituency seats.

“These are proportional seats, won directly by the party and belonging to it. If our party is banned and barred from political activity, I believe the seats it won in the Georgian Parliament will have no force and no value. They won’t, because these seats belong to the party. If our party is barred from political activity, then naturally we will have no business in Parliament either; these seats will have no value or force. Naturally, we will leave Parliament. We have committed no wrongdoing, no anti-state actions, no violations. So this is an artificial decision. It is nothing but personal revenge,” Kereselidze said.

The Constitutional Court has been hearing Georgian Dream’s constitutional lawsuit seeking to declare the United National Movement, the Coalition for Change, Strong Georgia – Lelo, the Federalists and Gakharia for Georgia unconstitutional and ban their activities since 21 October.