Alliance of Patriots Supports Zourabichvili in Runoff
By Tea Mariamidze
Tuesday, November 27
The Alliance of Patriots of Georgia (APG), which is often affiliated with Russia, held a protest rally in central Tbilisi, calling on their supporters to vote for the ruling Georgian Dream(GD) backed presidential candidate Salome Zourabichvili in Wednesday’s runoff.
“Zourabichvili should get at least 80% and defeat the UNM,” one of the leaders of the party, Davit Tarkhan-Mouravi stated at the rally, referring to the former ruling party United National Movement, whose candidate in the second round is Grigol Vashadze.
He also added that if the UNM does not disappear once and for all, the country will not find peace.
Another APG leader, Irma Inashvili said not the UNM but the Alliance of Patriots has to be the main opposition party in the country.
“The UNM is associated with criminals. The society should not let them regain the power,” she stressed.
Inashvili called on the APG supporters to vote for Zourabichvili so that she knows “she was elected by the people, not the ruling GD.”
The organizers of the rally claim around 98,000 people joined their protest at Rustaveli Avenue and Freedom Square.
The demonstrators were holding posters “No to Nazism” and “No to UNM.”
The party also announced they were going to adopt a manifest, through which they call on the government to end “cohabitation” process with the National Movement.
In addition, the party leaders stated during the rally that it is necessary the government talked to the breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia and even go to Russia, in order to unify the country.
APG members have already visited Moscow three times since June 2017. They claim the only way to get back Georgia’s occupied territories is a dialogue with Russia.
The APG party gained six mandates in Georgia’s 150-seat parliament during the October 2016 elections.
