MP Levan Machavariani: Foreign patrons may scheme to rebuild the opposition by 2028, but legal bids to ban ‘agent parties’ remain on the horizon

“Regrettably, the overwhelming majority of opposition parties in our country constitute an agent network subservient to foreign forces, which we refer to as the ‘Collective National Movement’. A single vertical command structure manages them. Their handlers have repeatedly attempted to reshuffle this network into various configurations to deceive our society. Every such attempt has ended in complete failure,” wrote MP Levan Machavariani, a member of the parliamentary majority, on social media.

According to Machavariani, so-called wealthy NGOs form an integral part of this network.

“Once external forces realised it was impossible to wash away the bloody past of the United National Movement itself, and that relying solely on them resulted in losing every election against the Georgian people, they artificially created several new parties.

Take Giorgi Gakharia’s party, for instance. His return to the political fray was triggered when the 43% threshold was imposed on Georgian Dream during the 2021 elections following the Charles Michel-brokered agreement. Behind closed doors, however, his camp circulated the narrative that his campaign was actually a Bidzina Ivanishvili satellite project. This was the exact message he circulated among Georgian Dream supporters. Foreign actors wanted to use Gakharia to split our vote and stop us from hitting the threshold.

When Gakharia openly and unabashedly formed coalitions with the UNM in four municipalities after the 2021 elections, his status as part of the ‘Collective UNM’ became so exposed that his foreign handlers had to radically alter their tactics.

Ahead of the crucial 2024 elections, they began another reshuffling of the agent network. The strategy was to distance Lelo and Gakharia’s party as much as possible from the ‘Collective UNM’, using them as a vehicle to win over floating and undecided voters.

Meanwhile, the UNM and their direct appendages were tasked with targeting radical voters; Lelo was assigned the ‘semi-radical’ segment, and Gakharia’s party was positioned as a ‘pseudo-constructive’ force.

To guarantee that the United National Movement’s core radical vote was fully retained, they also launched Ahali to keep those electors mobilised.

In this manner, the agent network operating under a single vertical command was diversified as much as possible.

The outcome of the 2025 elections was of secondary importance to the foreign handlers. Their baseline strategy was to keep Lelo and Gakharia’s party artificially distanced from the ‘Collective UNM’, whereas their maximum agenda culminated in the 4 October revolution. They instructed the rest of the network to declare a boycott, allowing only these two parties to contest the elections to create the illusion that they were pursuing an independent agenda.

As I mentioned above, according to the external forces’ plan, Lelo was to be positioned as a ‘semi-radical’ force, and Gakharia as a ‘pseudo-constructive’ one. Consequently, they adopted corresponding messaging regarding the October 4th revolutionary plan.

Lelo’s position was ‘semi-radical’, attending the elections in the morning and joining the ‘overthrow rally’ in the evening.

Gakharia’s position was ‘pseudo-constructive’, refraining from joining the ‘overthrow rally’.

I would also remind you that Lelo, along with the UNM and Ahali, were instructed to renounce their parliamentary mandates as befitted radicals; Gakharia was instructed to hold onto his, fitting the role of a ‘pseudo-constructive’ force. Gakharia was ordered to utilise his mandates only after the planned October 4th revolution collapsed.

It is noteworthy that foreign handlers had Gakharia’s party officially announce its decision to enter parliament just two weeks after the failed revolution.

A further continuation of the process to distance Lelo and Gakharia from the ‘Collective UNM’ in the eyes of our society was the creation of the so-called opposition alliance in March. According to the foreign handlers’ plan, these parties were to remain outside this so-called alliance, while the network parties directly participating in it should have raised artificial uproar. Everything developed according to plan: public attention was captured by the noise of the radical parties united under the so-called alliance, leaving the ‘semi-radical’ Lelo and ‘pseudo-constructive’ Gakharia out of the spotlight once again.

However, two issues proved so fundamental and existential to their foreign handlers that they demanded the total mobilisation of their entire network. This was pushed to such an extent that it resulted in the complete exposure of their own assets. Given what was at stake for these external forces, every ‘agent party’ and wealthy NGO was forced to show absolute unity, aligning perfectly in both messaging and action. At that stage, the risks of blowing their diversification strategy became entirely secondary.

The first issue was the Georgian Transparency Law. By passing this law, external forces saw their ability to circulate black money in Georgian politics restricted to a certain extent, thereby reducing their funding for the agent network. In my previous posts, I spoke at great length and in detail about how they fought this issue through a fraudulent campaign labelling it ‘Russian law’.

The second was the anti-LGBT propaganda law, which establishes two biological sexes and bans LGBT propaganda, particularly the introduction of such agendas into schools and kindergartens. Spreading ultraliberal ideology and convincing society that there are more than two sexes, or that a woman can become a man and vice versa, is so vital to the handlers that they chose to line up not only radical and semi-radical parties, but even the ‘pseudo-constructive’ Gakharia on the side of LGBT propaganda.

The majority of our citizens have clearly decoded these configurations of the foreign-agent opposition. This is further evidenced by the fact that Lelo’s voter turnout halved, and Gakharia’s dropped by two-thirds, in 2025 compared to the 2024 elections.

Until 2028, external forces will offer fresh reshuffling schemes. However, they should not forget that they face impending court proceedings regarding the banning of their foreign-agent parties,” wrote Levan Machavariani.