MP Tsulukiani: Opposition’s efforts in PACE credentials challenge against Georgia fail

“I want to express my condolences to our extremist opposition and all pseudo-NGOs, as their project to expel us without any justification tomorrow has failed,” stated Tea Tsulukiani, member of the parliamentary majority and head of Georgia’s parliamentary delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

Tsulukiani commented on the PACE Monitoring Committee’s project, according to which Georgia’s delegation’s credentials should be temporarily ratified with certain conditions.

According to Tsulukiani, the Georgian delegation will register an amendment to the project today, which will be discussed at tomorrow’s plenary session.

“Today has concluded. The Monitoring Committee has already published the document they were tasked to develop. Therefore, I can now openly tell you that two options were discussed at the committee: first – that we, the delegation of the newly convened parliament, would be expelled from the assembly tomorrow, as was the desire of our extremist opposition and their extremist allies; the second version was that our credentials would be ratified temporarily with serious conditions. These serious conditions do not include ‘freeing Saakashvili’ or ‘recognizing Salome Zourabichvili as a legitimate president.’ But there are other serious conditions, to which I explicitly told the committee that this won’t happen, there won’t be new parliamentary elections until 2028. This is not planned. I told them this, they know it, and my statement cannot be a surprise to them. They didn’t like this, but this is our common position, the position of the Georgian Dream and the majority of Georgian voters, that elections have already been held and whoever won, is the winner.

Accordingly, the procedure will now be as follows; first, I want to express my condolences to our extremist opposition that their project to expel us tomorrow without any reason has failed, and to all those pseudo-NGOs who are present in the corridors and everywhere in small numbers, I express my condolences to them too. Now we are taking time to review these conditions, and tomorrow, as the head of the delegation, I will be able to tell you our position on each of these conditions at the plenary session.

Today, we spent time securing support from various countries regarding these possible recommendations published by the committee today, and we have support from delegations of multiple countries. We will register an amendment to the project today, and they will support it. Accordingly, this text and our initiated amendment will be discussed at tomorrow’s plenary session, there will be heated debates, and then after the vote, we will see what the final result will be,” stated Tea Tsulukiani.

The PACE Monitoring Committee published its draft report regarding Georgia today.