MP Zviad Shalamberidze: Foreign agent network faces turbulent days ahead as its internal party elections draw near

“Every single statement from this foreign agent network is riddled with contradictions. They are now openly accusing their own leader of inconsistency, having already made countless admissions of their own insincerity. It turns out Khabeishvili wasn’t removed from his post due to health issues after all, he was ousted simply for being deemed too ‘common’ a leader, so they replaced him with someone from the so-called ‘posh’ crowd,” declared Georgian Dream member Zviad Shalamberidze.

MP Shalamberidze added that this “agent network” has some incredibly turbulent days ahead as their internal party elections draw near.

“These people are desperately trying to distance themselves from one another, trying to wipe off the very mud they spent years slinging together. This is exactly what lies behind Saakashvili’s recent statements and his sudden, faux-sincerity. If they had been genuinely sincere from the start, perhaps they would have enjoyed more support.

Absolutely no one believed that the United National Movement was being run transparently, or that Bokuchava or Khabeishvili were actually in charge. Of course, Saakashvili was pulling the strings from start to finish. All these presentations they are staging now, pretending that party members will be the ones making decisions, and that the United National Movement is entering some ‘new, more civilised and modern era’; it is just another pack of lies. I am certain this will collapse just as spectacularly as all their previous attempts. I would advise them to try speaking to voters face-to-face instead of communicating with them via a mobile app; it might be more effective. We just heard one of their leaders say that the United National Movement needs to ‘survive’. A party that is purely focused on survival can never have the ambition to be the leading opposition force in Georgia,” Shalamberidze stated.

For context, former President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili recently remarked: “Replacing Levan Khabeishvili right before the elections was our response to the entire posh ‘chattering-class bubble’ rallying against him. We didn’t have enough time to present him properly. They looked down on him because he didn’t speak English, because he spoke like an ordinary man; they found fault with everything. So, we brought in Tina, who is highly educated in Europe and America and speaks foreign languages, and yet that posh crowd still didn’t vote for us.”