Nika Gvaramia: Our sole demand is to bring proper elections forward as soon as possible

“By the second half of 2027 or early 2028, Bidzina Ivanishvili will be told, both at home and abroad: either you hold a proper, genuine election, or your head is on the chopping block,” declared Nika Gvaramia, one of the leaders of the Opposition Alliance, speaking on TV Pirveli.

Reflecting on future elections, Gvaramia stated that he cannot bring himself to urge people to go to the polls when, as he put it, a million Georgians who pump vast sums of money into the national economy are barred from voting.

“You have to work and create the right conditions. If you start claiming two years in advance that everything is pointless, then what? Perhaps there will be an election next year. They spent a whole year insisting to us that an election was just around the corner and that Ivanishvili would secure a constitutional majority. Absolutely nothing has been scheduled yet. Ivanishvili does not want the extra headache, and this situation is not a problem for him.

But if you tell Ivanishvili today, “Whether you yield or not, I am right here playing your game,” I fail to see how that would even be tactically sound. The second issue is strategy, and indeed morality. We demand that proper, genuine elections be held as close as possible. It is this very demand that prompted Irakli Kobakhidze to threaten me with prison. He told me, “I will lock you up again, because protests from within and sanctions from without are the real problem.” We have to find the patience,” Nika Gvaramia stated.