“As October 26 is approaching, we shall all be summing up a year-long history of national betrayal committed by several radical groups and NGOs. Should we see representatives of Gakharia’s party enter parliamentary life, this will be the logical conclusion to a year-long cycle of treachery,” the Speaker of Georgia’s Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, declared.

Papuashvili responded to widespread reports that the Gakharia for Georgia party has decided to take up its seats in Parliament.

“Last year, we witnessed foreigners taking part in the election campaign right up until October 26; ambassadors, representatives from Brussels and various capitals, ministers came and held rallies against us. They interfered in the elections, fully immersing themselves in the process, dismissing everything: international law, the UN Charter, the Vienna Convention. They crossed every line in their actions.

They told the Georgian people that everything was a sham: the law, legislation, international law. What truly mattered to them was their geopolitical goal: to install a puppet in Georgia’s government, ensuring that orders would be carried out unquestioningly. Ambassadors and foreign politicians went all in, interfering in the elections, only to be defeated. Refusing to accept this defeat, they then began to undermine the election process itself. The plan, dictated from abroad, was for the parties that had won mandates to renounce them.

They relinquished their mandates, and just look at what happened to those parties. Their support declined significantly in the local government elections. It’s a repeat of what occurred in 2020–2021. The amount of support that the Lelo party received in 2020 was only half of what they secured in the 2021 elections. People are seeing all of this clearly. Under foreign influence, they gave up their mandates and began plotting to overthrow the government, to incite a revolution. However, that revolution also failed, leaving them utterly discredited and cast aside.

Gakharia’s party retained its mandates. As for entering Parliament, they have already entered. Twelve members are currently considered Members of Parliament; they simply miss parliamentary sessions. So whether they end their boycott is up to them. Everything collapsed: the boycott, the overthrow, the revolution.

This has always been the outcome in Georgia’s history when an individual chooses the path of treachery and dances to the tune of foreign powers against their own country’s interests. The traitors have been exposed, and today we see that foreigners have openly become participants in Georgian politics, stepping into the breach themselves.

It is their choice how they conduct themselves. The Georgian Parliament will neither gain nor lose anything by their presence or absence. At the same time, it will be interesting to have them here; we can hear the messages coming from abroad directly. Whatever you hear from these twelve individuals, consider it an instruction from outside. In this regard, it will be revealing to observe in the parliamentary chamber what directives are being issued from abroad,” declared Shalva Papuashvili.