“Today’s decision, which Mr. Papuashvili announces with such pride — a decision by which we are stripping emigrants of their voting rights — is even more unheard-of and shocking,” Georgia’s fifth President, Salome Zurabishvili, said regarding the new legislative initiative that will restrict the right of Georgian emigrants to participate in elections.

According to Zurabishvili, in this case she is not interested in whom emigrants will support in elections, because the issue concerns their right to be full-fledged citizens of Georgia.

“This Russian regime will truly go down in Georgia’s history as the most criminal.”

“I want today’s statement to be dedicated to a matter that concerns every one of us. We all have someone who lives abroad. More than one million people have left Georgia, and today that number has likely reached one and a half million. These people are not only a part of our country — they are an extremely valuable resource for Georgia in every respect. We all know the scale of remittances that replenish the budget — a budget that today is evidently struggling.

This part of our society left the country precisely because the state failed to create either political or economic conditions that would have kept them here or enabled their return. Therefore, the state holds an obligation to them — to preserve their connection with Georgia by every possible means. Small countries like ours have no other strength except their diaspora.

Nothing is being done here to help them, to create new conditions that would give them the desire to return. On the contrary — everything is being done to make them feel an ever-widening division between ‘them’ and ‘us.’”

Zurabishvili added that she feels personal responsibility toward emigrants because she led the legislative initiative that finally made it possible for Georgian citizens to receive dual citizenship while retaining Georgian citizenship — something she considers extremely important for a small country.

“Since I initiated that law, and during my six years as President, I have never stopped fighting with the Ministry of Justice and other agencies to simplify procedures for obtaining dual citizenship and restoring Georgian citizenship. Instead of simplifying it further, instead of telling these people, ‘Come, remain part of us,’ we now say: ‘No, you stay there — just keep sending money to Georgia.’ This approach directly contradicts Article 5 of the Constitution, which states that the state shall care for maintaining and strengthening the connection of compatriots living abroad with their homeland.

The diaspora that lives in different countries — they are our real representatives, not those ambassadors who have been turned into servants. They are the ones keeping Georgian culture alive abroad. The Georgian economy, real investments — if anything enters this country that is real and not fictitious — it is thanks to them.”

“Therefore, today’s decision, which Mr. Papuashvili announces so proudly — through which we deprive them of the right to vote — is even more outrageous and staggering.

In this case, I am not defending anyone; I do not care whose side those one and a half million people support. I do not care whom they would vote for. This is about their right to be full-fledged citizens of this country. If you hold a Georgian passport and citizenship, you must also have the right to participate in elections.

What was done during the last elections — the discrimination now being examined by the Strasbourg Court and which must be reviewed more swiftly — was a gross violation of all constitutional principles. Almost every article of our Constitution has been trampled on. This is our reality. But today my heart aches for those Georgians who struggle for this country wherever they are, who have only one desire — to return fully to this homeland — and now this regime tells them: ‘You are not our children,’” said Salome Zurabishvili