Lelo’s Elisashvili: Mistakes must be acknowledged; election boycott was Russian-backed operation

Aleko Elisashvili, one of the leaders of the Lelo-Strong Georgia party, has described the opposition’s boycott of the local self-government elections as a Russian special operation. Speaking on PalitraNews, Elisashvili emphasised that this decision was deliberately orchestrated.

Elisashvili acknowledged that the opposition failed to persuade voters and made a series of strategic errors.

According to Elisashvili, the idea of boycotting the elections was intentionally “planted.”

“The entire period we have been through calls for careful analysis. Mistakes must be acknowledged. Our mistake was that we couldn’t convince people to participate in the local elections. Of course, there were many other errors. It was a missed opportunity; we could have won Tbilisi without much fuss if certain influences hadn’t been instilled and if some individuals hadn’t been overly excited. Essentially, the boycott of the elections was a Russian special operation.

Not participating in the elections was a mistake. Announcing a revolution just two months prior was also a mistake. Let’s set everything else aside. If you don’t plan a revolution on October 4, then schedule it for October 6. An adventure should be called an adventure. All of this was a well-planned and orchestrated operation. It was, without doubt, a Russian special operation to discourage voters from turning out at the polls and rally on Rustaveli instead,” Elisashvili stated.