PM: Yesterday We Saw Radical Part of the Opposition Calling for Disobedience

"Yesterday we saw the totally irresponsible, radical part of the opposition calling for disobedience, an attempt to storm the Central Election Commission, and insults hurled at police officers and doctors, those who are the backbone of the country today," Georgian Prime Minister stated at today’s meeting of the Interagency Coordination Council.

The Head of Government, in commenting on yesterday’s events at the Central Election Commission, pointed out that direct calls to destroy state institutions were voiced, and the state’s response was, as it had to be, legitimate and strict.

“Over the past few months, we all here, together with our society, have been fighting against the pandemic, recession, and a war in the region, all while trying to enhance the quality of the democratization process. These are not grandiloquent words. On October 31, amid the pandemic, with real risks present, Georgian citizens went to the ballot box and voted. And notwithstanding the pandemic, we had one of the highest voter turnouts in the world, certainly higher than in the 2016 elections. Suffice to say, citizens voted and mandated 9 parties to enter Parliament.

"We are reasonable people, and we all understand that, in fact, Georgian citizens have mandated us to care for the country. And this mandate, above all else, means dealing with the pandemic and recession, and ensuring against halting the process of the country’s democratization all the while. That is our mandate. But what did we see yesterday? Yesterday we saw the totally irresponsible, radical part of the opposition calling for disobedience, an attempt to storm the Central Election Commission and, most importantly, insults hurled against police officers and doctors, those who are the backbone of the country today in its fight against various crises, and we, in fact, heard direct calls for destroying state institutions. We all must understand that this is not a task facing just the law enforcements. The state’s response must be legitimate and tough,” the Prime Minister said.

The PM noted that any offense, violence or call for violence must be analyzed from the legal angle, and no compromises should be made in this regard. 

“These are not grandiloquent words. We are all, together and on a daily basis, working toward saving lives. We are counting each hospital bed, each ambulance crew in the country, and we are calculating where to dispatch each doctor. And challenges are even greater in the economic dimension. We are trying to deal with it all so as to enhance the quality of the country’s democratization even further. Ultimately, peace and democracy have no alternative, of course. Every process seeking to take matters to the street, like what we saw yesterday, must be—on our own initiative and that of our strategic partners—translated onto the legal and political platform as soon as possible. Negotiations have no alternative, something we and our strategic partners have always said, and we must remember that it is, among others, what our voters command us to do,” Giorgi Gakharia emphasized.