One of the leaders of the Coalition for Change, Elene Khoshtaria, who is currently in detention, reflects on 2025 and says she will present her vision of the path to victory to the public on the second day of Christmas.

According to Khoshtaria, 2025 was a year marked by an overwhelming share of negativity. She notes that it became clear that the guarantor of Georgia’s European choice is not the Constitution, but the will of specific people.

“In political technology, there is a trick: if a statement made on the eve of a holiday reaches the festive table, it has a chance to become a topic of discussion. Since I physically cannot reach the New Year’s table this year, I decided to use this trick and reach you this way. The New Year’s transition is the best time to analyze the past year and plan ahead, and the festive table is the best place for that.

It is also known that the human brain absorbs negativity more easily than positivity. Therefore, I want us not to fall into this trap of the brain and psyche and to try to see the full picture as much as possible.

2025 was clearly distinguished by its share of negativity - the scale of brutality, violence, lies, arrogance, injustice, and disappointment often felt unbearable. ‘How long?’, ‘How much can we endure?’, ‘I could never have imagined this!’ - it felt as if we were falling into a bottomless abyss.

Just as traveling to Europe for weekends was about to become routine, the threat of losing visa-free travel became real; the murderers of Anzuladze mockingly praise the so-called government; Europe was declared an enemy; an elderly displaced woman is dragged into an isolation cell by a young Georgian man; women are beaten in the streets; respected teachers are arrested; the ‘fate of the country’ is decided in Ashgabat; Finland’s foreign minister is fined GEL 5,000; the Security Service regulates product prices; chemical substances are sprayed on our streets, including on schoolchildren - all while Europe says the long-awaited words: ‘Our door is open to Georgia.’ And from Georgia’s ‘authorities’ we hear: ‘Get lost, I’m going to Ashgabat.’ And this list is incomplete. And this is happening to us.

Faced with this reality, it is impossible not to ask whether we are perishing - or whether we already have. This mood creates a sense of catastrophe.

But this is not what I want to bring to your New Year’s table. What I want to share, and what I deeply believe, is that 2025 is the year of the birth of something very important and precious - something entirely new within us and within our country. Childbirth is a painful process; there are moments when you think you cannot endure it, but when you realize that this pain leads to the birth of what is most precious, and that this is your responsibility, your strength multiplies.

Society, the state, like a person, develops character through responding to challenges. Every challenge places us before a choice - to adapt, to deceive ourselves, to say ‘it’s not my problem,’ or to act, because this is my country and the responsibility is mine. This is not an easy choice, because the path of struggle is not comfortable and victory is not guaranteed. But if you do not act, you cease to be yourself, and your country ceases to be yours.

On November 28, 2024, the Georgian people acted exactly this way. They said: this is our will - this country is ours, this country is European. Citizens independently began acting according to their own will. In this seemingly simple but dangerous choice, two things were born: the free citizen and the European choice.

It became clear that the guarantor of our European choice is not the Constitution, but the will of concrete individuals. Today, when world leaders speak about Georgia’s European perspective, no one says ‘because it is written in your Constitution.’ They say: ‘because citizens are fighting for it.’

In 2025, a path of struggle for the European choice was also born - a uniquely Georgian path, shaped solely by our free will, thinking, and action. I see clearly how this path is being studied in different parts of the world.

Despite often being dissatisfied with ourselves, we must understand that the system we are fighting is disproportionate to our strength and represents a new type of authoritarianism. There are no ready-made recipes for fighting such a regime. Freedom cannot be won through laziness, self-deception, or falsehood.

All logic was defeated by the will of citizens filled with a thirst for freedom. It turned out that neither in Georgia nor in the world does there exist an example of such a long-lasting, relentless, stubborn, continuous, principled, and firm struggle.

Thus was born modern Georgian protest.

Solidarity is not new to humanity or to Georgia, but our society turned solidarity into a weapon of struggle - a weapon that slips through the hands of the oppressive system and will inevitably break its walls.

The prisoners of conscience showed us a new standard. They were not professional politicians; many were successful in their professions or studying with determination. They acted independently, driven by the same instinct - the European choice and resistance to violence and injustice. Their values have become the new norm and standard for Georgian society.

The Georgian people have also created something new in international relations. For more than a year now, Georgia has not been perceived by the world solely as a so-called regime. Decisions regarding Georgia are made based not on the position of the authorities, but on the will of those fighting for the European choice in prisons and on the streets of Tbilisi.

This year was truly not a year of victory. It was a year of pain and indignity. But within this pain, the choices made by many - Mzia, Mate, Grandma Aza, Father Dorothe, Japaras, Guram Rogava, and others - turned 2025 into the year of the birth of what is most precious to us: a free Georgia. This birth is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for victory.

The path to victory is clear, concrete, and realistic. I wanted to speak about it today, but the reflection on the year carried me away.

The prison administration resumes work on the 8th, and on the second day of Christmas I will present my vision of the path to victory.

P.S. Last year, I was so crushed by the brutality, beaten people, and political prisoners that the New Year was filled only with bitterness. This year I am a prisoner myself, and since I am spending the New Year in prison, I allow myself to advise you: celebrate, rest, give and receive positive emotions without guilt. The better you are on the outside, the better it will be for me. From January, we will attack with renewed strength.

Happy New Year,” Khoshtaria writes.