During his appearance on PalitraNews’s program Dgis Newsroom, Teimuraz Papaskiri, a representative of the Coalition for Change, said that after the parliamentary elections, the opposition could not unite because “there was a political force whose leadership had no interest in unity.”

“The ruling power cannot be overthrown if there is no strong opposition. Georgian Dream openly says it will ban parties capable of defeating it — those that have real electorates. The issue lies in what the opposition failed to do. We saw why the unification did not happen — after the elections, there was a force within the opposition that simply had no interest in unity. Gakharia’s voters turned out to be clearly opposition-minded, as shown in the so-called local elections, where they were simply wiped out. I’m not talking about the party as a whole, but about its leader, who effectively torpedoed every attempt at opposition unity when it was still possible. Later, Lelo joined that stance.

A year ago, it was still unclear how these parties would act within a coalition, which led to a split vote. That’s why voters were driven into the streets not by election fraud, but by the sense that the path toward Europe was being blocked. When they saw no united front, voters became passive. That’s when the crucial moment was lost. One day, it will be revealed what really happened — who hesitated, who didn’t dare to speak up. It’s not being discussed now only because the process is ongoing and could be damaged. It was possible to bring down Georgian Dream completely by December, but it required a slightly different strategy,” said Papaskiri.

According to him, if early parliamentary elections are called, Georgian Dream will do everything possible to prevent the emergence of a “coalition umbrella party” among pro-Western forces.

“No matter how the elections are held or how much they are rigged, Georgian Dream will still lose about a third of the vote and will not be able to secure a constitutional majority. In reality, its rating is not high at all — in any fair election, it wouldn’t win, not even take first place under current conditions. That’s why they are now seeking to ban political parties. Lelo is gravely mistaken if it believes it won’t be targeted — it will be, despite having partially played Bidzina Ivanishvili’s game during the so-called local self-government elections.

Some now say that boycotting Parliament was a mistake. With all due respect — in 2021, the opposition had 60 MPs who entered Parliament. Did their presence have any impact? Did they achieve anything they wanted? Georgian Dream still appointed whoever it wanted as CEC chairperson, held elections however it wanted, and passed the ‘Russian law.’ In which case did the opposition manage to stop them? Not once. There is no political process when one side refuses real participation. When the other side’s goal is dictatorship, the Parliament serves merely as a fig leaf. The real political process is now in the streets. I’m not saying it should only happen there, but there are no remaining institutions in this country through which politics can be conducted. Talking about opposition representation in 57 districts is meaningless — what did opposition representatives ever achieve in local councils? We have no real self-government; it’s just a façade. Political processes cannot take place under such conditions, especially not in this Parliament, where they do whatever they want,” Papaskiri said.

He also commented on the European Commission’s enlargement report released yesterday, describing it as objective and “an entirely logical outcome of Georgian Dream’s actions aimed solely at preserving power.”

According to Papaskiri, Georgian Dream will not fulfill the requirements outlined in the report.