Gegelia: Banning Parties Is a Declared Attempt to Entrench Dictatorship

Grigol Gegelia, foreign affairs secretary of Lelo-Strong Georgia, responded to a statement by Aoife Devere, communications assistant at ALDE, concerning the lawsuit to ban political parties. According to Gegelia, ALDE, like all other European political families and civilized community, stands on the side of Georgian democracy and the democratic struggle of the Georgian people.

According to him, the banning of leading political parties is assessed by every normal person around the world as a direct and declared attempt and intention to entrench autocracy and even dictatorship.

Gegelia states that ALDE assesses the attempt to ban parties as "a Russian special operation against Georgian democracy and Georgia's European and Atlantic integration".

"I want to stress that in the world, no one has remained who would see the 'Dream regime' differently. The only possible reading and interpretation of this affair is that the Russian regime is establishing dictatorship, depriving a million Georgians not only of their voice but also of the right to choose, and officially imposing in this country an autocratic quagmire of the Russian type," Gegelia said.

Speaking to journalists, he also commented on the statement of Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili. According to Papuashvili, "until ALDE distances itself from Lelo, the ally of a terrorist, any statement by ALDE leadership regarding Georgia must be considered as a statement of an organization that protects a terrorist".

According to Gegelia, the ally of a terrorist is the regime that conducts political life together with internationally recognized terrorist groups, namely Hezbollah and Hamas.

"We remember numerous footage and numerous moments when the top figures of this regime were at common events and in common spaces with the internationally recognized terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, and we remember that open enemies of the United States and the European Union stood beside them in the same space," Gegelia said.

According to him, when it comes to alliance with terrorism, as well as sabotage and attempted constitutional coup, the government can look in the mirror. According to Gegelia, whatever the regime today accuses its opponents of, everything is done by its own hands against Georgia, while "Georgian Dream" is writing its own indictment in legal and political terms.

Regarding the specific case of ALDE, Gegelia said that Aleko Elisashvili and his political movement "Citizens" have never been affiliated with ALDE, so it is unclear how ALDE could have any specific position on this point. According to him, Elisashvili was not, is not, and does not intend to be a member of "Lelo" or ALDE. Gegelia said Papuashvili knows this very well and continues the usual demagoguery he has been engaging in on this topic for a whole year.