“Whenever they perceive even a slim chance, they resort to fighting or simply fending for themselves. This is the true reflection of the current opposition’s approach to the election results,” stated Levan Makhashvili, Chairman of the European Integration Committee of the Georgian Parliament.

Makhashvili commented on Aleko Elisashvili, one of the leaders of the Strong Georgia coalition, who said: “Let’s compete in six major cities; in the rest—boycott, joint candidates, with Salome Zourabichvili leading in Tbilisi, and us around her.”

“Elisashvili’s statement and this scenario are self-lustration. They openly admit that, in most cases, they have little chance of winning. Whenever they perceive even a slim chance, they resort to fighting or simply fending for themselves. This is the true reflection of the current opposition’s approach to the election results. We can already anticipate that they will have no real chance, and their attempts to seize municipal power through radicalisation and escalation will likely prove futile and yield no positive results.

Perhaps we, the Georgian Dream party, could only wish for Salome Zourabichvili to be nominated as a mayoral candidate in Tbilisi. I would be pleased to call on her to run, so we can genuinely assess her personal popularity—and allow the opposition to see how she stands in the polls. Given the election results, they will realise how decisively they will be defeated,” Makhashvili concluded.