Address by President Zourabichvili

I would like to address society, but at the same time, the Georgian Dream and its representatives.

Congratulations, gentlemen! Because either you no longer consider women, or if you do, you mention them in such a way that it is better not to mention them at all. You have lost the most basic of Georgian politeness, which is very sad for you, but the most congratulatory is that you were able to coincide your Russian law, I apologize to Mr. Papuashvili for using this term, but I do, the initiation of Russian law in the week that goes from March 31st until April 9th, which for the recent history of Georgia is probably full of national spirit, something that you do not possess, neither national nor European. And today these two concepts - national and European are united. It is impossible to separate this and the Georgian society understands this very well. You don't want to see, you don't want to hear that Georgian society is united under this one direction, to strengthen independence, to strengthen our European path and Russia will never return here. The Georgian Dream has already shown its face, so to speak. There was a period, maybe a month from December 15, when we were told that we won this European decision, it is our merit, we did everything for it, and this new rhetoric continued for a while.

But today everything is clear. The "Dream" made its statement very clear. He told Europe – no in all directions, to what was written in the previous recommendations and to what is written in today's 9 recommendations. They said no to all possible issues that determine our future and the opening of accession negotiations. It gave a clear refusal to all these directions. We got a kind of advance from Europe and today the "Dream" is busy sabotaging this path of ours and our future. Sabotage is the only word that comes to mind.

No to the justice reform. “How can it be, I will not participate in any form of vetting or other forms”. Their main goal is not to sacrifice Murusidze and Chinchaladze - even at the cost of the European future of Georgia.

No to joining sanctions or aligning with the EU's foreign policy, which we are told is necessary if you want to join this union of nations. And the ultimatum to the United States is also comical. “We are very powerful and we should not offend Russia” - this is the subtext of it all.

No to fair elections. Our and only our rules. Our and only our CEC. Our and only our Chairman of the CEC. No to the participation of the diaspora, “just in case they are not with us”. The insults are always accompanied by stating that it is not possible to open election districts in all building doors”.

No to women's rights and no to the only practically implemented recommendation we had on gender equality, let's go backward and push women out. No to anti-corruption measures, on the contrary, it turns out that we don't need to know how our judges, court chairpersons, or former prime ministers get rich, the main thing is that they have rich parents, children, or brothers, and the society doesn't know anything about it. Certainly, no to depolarization, because on the contrary, they aggravate the entire society and all these initiated laws serve this purpose - be it a provocative one on LGBT or today with the second introduction of Russian law, as if everything in history is repeating itself.

All this is a direct challenge of our own people, a challenge at the same time, obviously, of our partners, who have given us candidacy status in advance and expect from us a sincere expression that we are following this path, that there is a political will to follow this path.

What does this challenge serve? To cause disorder, destabilization of a kind and everyone to be baptized as a radical, foreign agent, supporter of some war party, etc. These are very well-known techniques, some of us have already been through them years ago and nothing is new in this world, so our society is very prepared for all this and no one can deviate from his/her path.

The answer to all this, to this rudeness and to this very big insult to Georgia, which is called Russian law and the Russian direction, is one and only one answer - it is to express our European opinion through elections. The elections are coming soon, the government knows much better than us what the real numbers are, it knows very well that the constitutional majority and the return of Misha are all myths, with which they want to scare the public. It is a reality that there is a large majority in the country who know what they want and they want an independent and European future for this country. We have to go to the elections, great mobilization is needed for that, and there is no hopelessness, no depression, no pessimism, no great disorder - here we need preparation, preparation so that we all go to these elections, under one European flag. Perhaps with several parties, but under one flag, and this is the European flag, the European action plan, on which we are working and we will unite, which does not mean the unification of the parties, but it means their expansion, and most importantly, it means the unification of society, national agreement on Europe. I will hold on to this flag until the end and I will be with you until the end so that we win, Europe and European Georgia win this next election, and nothing can be done by these plans or tricks that the “Dream” is spinning today.

Thank you very much.