Zurab Girchi Japaridze, a member of the Coalition for Change, said that participation in the local elections is meaningless without fulfilling two conditions.

As he told journalists while assessing the statement of Giorgi Gakharia, the leader of the Gakharia for Georgia party, without releasing political prisoners and calling new elections, this would not only kill the momentum of the protest, but also ruin the non-recognition of the regime.

"Our position is what has been publicly stated many times, that until all political prisoners are not released and new parliamentary elections are not scheduled, including under new conditions agreed upon by all major political groups, I personally do not intend to participate in any local elections. There will be no local elections, and these tales that the opposition can win the capital, etc. are a delusion, a lie. People will not go to these elections. It is impossible to win these elections, they will write whatever they want. The illusions about Tbilisi, that the opposition won on October 26, are illusions.

What changes in circumstances they are waiting for, everyone who says so must explain. There are two conditions: new parliamentary elections and the release of all political prisoners. In addition, some conditions may change so that these two conditions are not met and it is still worth participating in local elections, then they should say so. But no one can name such a condition. Everyone who makes statements, in fact, is waiting for the protests to die down and then they will say that streets are ineffective and they will use the podium. I have seen this after the 2020 elections.

Gakharia said that he is maintaining the version that he may participate [in the local elections]. In my opinion, if these two conditions are not met, the scheduling of new parliamentary elections and the release of political prisoners, including the scheduling of new parliamentary elections under specific conditions, which are agreed upon by all major opposition groups, there is no point in participating at all. On the contrary, it would kill the protest mood and also ruin everything what we have maintained so far from the outside, the non-recognition of this regime, the introduction of sanctions, etc., all of this,” Japaridze said.