Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze has stated his belief that certain opposition groups in Georgia are incapable of expressing their own views and instead attempt to echo the messages of representatives or politicians from specific foreign countries.

When asked to comment on the acknowledgement by part of the opposition that their decision to boycott parliament was a mistake, Kaladze said that these political groupings are fundamentally out of step with the interests of the Georgian people and of Georgia itself.

“We know that these individuals cannot and do not express their own views; they are entirely guided from outside. No matter what instructions they receive or what message a representative or politician from a particular country issues, they will always try to align themselves with it. Accordingly, everything is clear: what these particular political groupings represent, what interests they serve, who pilots them and from where. They are most certainly not aligned with the Georgian people or Georgia’s interests; they are at odds with both. Georgian society can see all of this plainly. That is why, when elections are held, the Georgian people make the appropriate decisions,” Kaladze told journalists.

Salome Samadashvili, one of the leaders of the Lelo party, stated: “An electoral boycott has never, anywhere, produced any result other than damage to the opposition itself.”