“Bidzina Ivanishvili's unresolved wound is that when he was committing madness, I was the only one who would tell him so. Now, he has no one, and as you can see, he's gone off into space. Let him fly. The main thing is that the country doesn't get harmed,” Giorgi Gakharia, founder of the For Georgia party and former prime minister, commented on Bidzina Ivanishvili's recent interview.
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Giorgi Gakharia noted that four days before the elections, the most influential person in the country is threatening members of his party with arrest, and this is his most pressing concern today.
"The honourable chairman, such a prominent man, threatened young people who serve the country - honest civil servants - with arrest simply because they expressed their will and political stance.
This is the man who believes that every single GEL in Georgia belongs to him, that state property is his, and ultimately, he believes that all votes and people belong to him. He sees everything as his private property. Bidzina thinks all the money is his, all the votes are his, and if you don't vote for him, you're a traitor to the people.
Why was this an open attack on us?! Ivanishvili knows very well that we are the force that will defeat the Dream and prevent the National Movement from returning to power. Look at his face, full of fear," said Gakharia, repeating that he is ready for a debate with Ivanishvili in any format.
"He says that he has arranged the evidence. Let him arrange it on his Imedi, in a public debate on his television - there’s no problem. In his own court. They've been promising for three or four years, 'We’ll do this, we’ll do that, we’ll investigate and punish.' Well, punish me then! And thirdly, in any format - because there are people of a specific mentality there, in any format. He knows he will lose in all formats because everything he says is a lie," Gakharia said at the briefing.
Yesterday, on October 21, in an interview with the government-affiliated TV company Imedi, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the honorary chairman of the Georgian Dream, spoke about banning opposition parties. He called Giorgi Gakharia a “scoundrel” and said that 'they have arranged all the documents against him at the court level.'
"They will definitely have to judge this scoundrel, while his supporters stand by him. We will prove, in black and white, everything he did, how he helped the National Movement, and how he continues to help them today. He was fully aware that he should involve Georgia in a war the very next day. All the court documents have been arranged. Surely, they will have to answer for this, and they will face severe consequences. I am particularly irritated with him and the members of his party. They were majority members of the Georgian Dream, entered parliament with our mandate, and now they are mimicking and sometimes even worsening the narratives of the National Movement. Of course, they deserve strict punishment, and I assure you they will get it," Ivanishvili said.
Giorgi Gakharia served as the Prime Minister of Georgia from September 2019 until his resignation on February 18, 2021. He was the Minister of Internal Affairs from 2017-2019, the Minister of Economy from 2016-2017, and the Business Ombudsman from 2013-2016.
