According to the chairman of the party Federalists, Giga Bokeria, it is “another shameless lie of Ivanishvili’s regime” that the temporary administrative-territorial unit on the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous District was created because the imperialist “Deep State”, the Bush administration, and the European Union forced it on the Georgian government.

Speaking on PalitraNews program “Free Studio”, Bokeria stated that the goal of the Georgian Dream government is to demonize the United States, the European Union and the entire Western world.

“For 11 years they maintained this betrayal against the homeland, and now they suddenly remembered that it was disastrous for Georgia? If it was betrayal, why didn’t they abolish it for all these years? They are following the line of Russian propaganda - demonizing the free world, the U.S., the EU and the entire West, and trying to deceive society by claiming that they are our enemy, while our enemy is supposedly our friend. It is an Orwellian message.”

Bokeria added that creating the temporary administrative-territorial unit on the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous District aimed to demonstrate that the people whom Russian propaganda labels as representatives of the Ossetian people are actually Moscow’s puppets. According to him, there are both ethnically Ossetian and ethnically Georgian Georgian citizens living in the region who want to live under the Constitution of Georgia.

He also rejected claims that elections were held in the temporary administrative-territorial unit, saying:

“It was not an election - you can consider it a public survey. Formally, an election was not held.”

Bokeria said that the goal of Georgia’s government at the time - and it remains the country’s national interest today - was to counter Russian propaganda portraying the conflict in Tskhinvali as an ethnic conflict between Georgians and Ossetians.

“In the 1990s, Russia carried out military aggression in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region, committed genocide and ethnic cleansing of Georgians. They carried this out themselves, with their own armed forces. And the narrative they pushed was that this was an ethnic conflict. Russia wanted to avoid responsibility in the eyes of the international community and portray it as ‘Georgians killing Ossetians’. Unfortunately, today’s regime continues the same narrative. Ivanishvili apologized to Ossetians and Abkhazians - meaning that Russia is not responsible, and it is an ethnic conflict. If it’s an ethnic conflict, then responsibility is ambiguous, and Russia was supposedly forced to intervene. That is why it was important to show that this is not an ethnic conflict - that the individuals whom Russian propaganda portrays as representatives of the Ossetian people are puppets, and that both ethnic Ossetians and Georgians in the region want to live peacefully in Georgia under the constitution. In other words: Georgians are not fighting Ossetians; Russia’s artificially created puppets are fighting the Constitution of Georgia and the local Ossetians and Georgians.”

Regarding the restriction of the right of Georgian emigrants abroad to participate in elections, Bokeria says the government made this move because results from polling stations abroad clearly show the situation where Georgian Dream has no means of pressure or vote-buying.

“It is obvious why they are doing this. Those polling stations abroad did not decide the outcome of the elections, but they showed what happens where the government has limited or zero ability to pressure or bribe voters. This picture angers them - they are breaking the mirror. If they claim that few people vote abroad, why are they behaving this way? Again, for them the enemy is the free world. They are frightened of every place where the real picture becomes visible.”