Gotsiridze Calls Rustaveli Works Real Face of Georgian Dream

Opposition politician, former member of parliament and former president of the National Bank Roman Gotsiridze calls the situation related to the ongoing rehabilitation works on Rustaveli Avenue "the real face of the corrupt and incompetent regime." In his view, the government should be removed for "irresponsible, unsanitary and dangerous infrastructural chaos."

Gotsiridze recalls that about 30 years ago he was in the small German city of Rheine, near the border with the Netherlands, attending a scientific conference. This period coincided with the Champions Cup final between Real and Juventus. Without a ticket, he went to Amsterdam by train, but even in hotels in the cities near Amsterdam there was no free room. He barely found a room in Haarlem and watched the match there.

According to him, tens of thousands of fans were arriving by train from Italy and Spain. On one of the main streets leading from the central station toward the city center, a metro was being built. Due to unstable soil, tunneling could not be carried out and construction was underway using the open method, roughly as is now happening on Rustaveli Avenue. Thousands of Italian and Spanish fans were heading to the stadium singing along the sidewalk of this street under construction. Gotsiridze says the work zone was so perfectly isolated that neither mud dirtied anything nor dust from the sand piles.

"What is happening on Rustaveli today is the real face of Georgian Dream's corrupt and incompetent regime. For them a person means nothing – they deceive citizens, mock them, rob them and restrict freedom," Gotsiridze writes.

According to him, in a normal state the government would have resigned the same day over chaos like that on Rustaveli Avenue. "These people should resign, they should be thrown out, and that is what will happen," Gotsiridze adds.