Nika Gvaramia, the imprisoned leader of the Coalition for Change, commented on the ruling Georgian Dream party's lawsuit to ban some opposition parties.
"We will ban those who ban us. Of course, we will ban them politically and professionally. Regarding the ban on parties, I will say three things (in addition to what has been said above): I definitely intend to join the process and travel from prison to Batumi to represent the party and myself in the Constitutional Court. They plan to ban me from every profession I can see (journalist, politician, lawyer), and I will use my constitutionality to my advantage in something. Before they ban me, I'll have some fun…" the politician wrote on his Facebook page.
He specifically noted the parties that have not yet been banned, assuring that the authorities intend to quickly review the case.
"For those who don't see the difference between three defendants and ten, I want to point out that each defendant has their own representatives, experts, circumstances to be examined, and the full range of procedural rights and procedures. For this reason, individual individuals are not included in the lawsuit; they would also be separate defendants, each with their own full range of procedural actions. Therefore, they didn't warn anyone, didn't avoid anyone, and didn't reconcile with anyone. These conspiracies on this and other topics are absurd, senseless, and harmful. In short, we're talking about a quick fix, and they've gone through the process of banning the electoral entities that passed the threshold and will extend the ban on others at any time within 14 days," the opposition figure explained.
Gvaramia viewed the ruling party's decision as a ban not on parties, but on elections, since "without the three highest-ranking mainstream entities (whether two or one), elections don't meet the standard of free elections in terms of competitiveness." Accordingly, there is simply no theoretical chance of the legitimacy of their results." According to the politician, competitiveness is the primary filter for election legitimacy, while all others, including various forms of fraud, are secondary.
"If the first filter is not passed, the rest is meaningless – legitimacy is zero," Gvaramia emphasizes.
As a reminder, the ruling Georgian Dream party has filed a petition with the Constitutional Court demanding that three political parties, including the United National Movement, founded by former President Mikheil Saakashvili, be declared unconstitutional. Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Shalva Papuashvili stated that the basis for the lawsuit is the report of the parliamentary investigative commission examining "crimes committed during Saakashvili's rule."
If the lawsuit is upheld, members of these parties will be prohibited from participating in political activity, in accordance with previously adopted legislation. The Georgian Parliament also passed a law allowing for the banning of parties that replicate the ideology of previously banned organizations.
On July 1, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced Nika Gvaramia, one of the leaders of the opposition Akhali party and the Coalition for Change, an ally and former member of President Mikheil Saakashvili's government, to eight months in prison for refusing to testify before the parliament's temporary investigative commission. Prior to the verdict, the politician remained in custody after refusing to post bail of 30,000 lari.
