President Salome Zourabichvili Heavily Criticizes Georgian Dream During Report Speech in Parliament
By Liza Mchedlidze
Monday, April 3, 2023
The President of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, during her annual report to the Parliament, heavily criticized the ruling party and accused them of planting conspiracy theories of the 'second front' and constantly spreading Anti-EU rhetoric. According to Zourabichvili, Georgian people know very well that the idea of creating the European Union serves peace and not war.
President Zourabichvili said that the European Union in Georgia directly serves the peaceful development of our country.
"If we look at the European recommendations, there is nothing strange to us here, there is no danger of alienation, on the contrary, it is an echo of our traditional values. What divided depolarization and our age-old tolerance? What divided the European request for judicial reform and our tradition of justice based on the monuments of Georgian law and rooted in us? What has divided gender equality and our historically protected legal rights of women (before many other countries) and respect for women? No matter how you try and spread these conspiracy theories of the second front, the Georgian people know very well that the idea of creating the European Union serves peace and not war.
The European Union in Georgia directly serves the peace of our country, in the form of the EU observation mission, and peaceful development. Therefore, no matter how hard you try, these modeled scenarios, which were used by the previous government and suspiciously coincide with the messages of Russia and the separatists, you will not achieve results. It is a fact that Tbilisi and Moscow speak the same language on the subject of this second front. No matter how hard you try to prove that the European interest and our national interest are in conflict with each other, you cannot escape the reality, because the protection of the territory, de-occupation, strengthening of the defense forces, the security of the population, the development of the economy and education - all this is unthinkable and impossible without close connection and cooperation with our partners.
In her speech, President Zourabichvili said that 'Georgian Dream' has raised questions about Georgia's chosen political path in recent years by neglecting Georgian people's pro-Western aspirations and bringing Russian Duma deputy Sergei Gavrilov in Georgia.
According to the President, today there is a government that has slowly started to change its face.
"I can't tell you now where you stand and why you left the will of the people and the mandate received from them? Today, you are the government that has slowly started to transform. Instead of strengthening the state institutions as the cornerstone of the country's democracy, the one-party system and its influences are being strengthened. Laws adopted in an accelerated mode (law on wiretapping, abolition of the state inspector's service, changes in the rules of appointing judges and the law on foreign agents) serve not to strengthen the country's democracy or the well-being of citizens, but to consolidate and prolong power. The judicial reform necessary for the future of the country has reached a dead end. Your government has not broken the vicious circle on which the same people have been walking for years, which may also serve to strengthen the power," the president stated.
President Zourabichvili also said in her speech that people of different opinions and political views started to flow out of the 'Georgian Dream'.
"Any slightly different opinion is no longer heard in your ranks, because it automatically means leaving the mandate. The influence of the party on the government and the parliament began to strengthen, the party turned into a space for making decisions, the chairman of the party announces his position in advance on all political issues, and, most importantly, the process of making decisions became vague, to say nothing of open discussion. You are the government which, with the incomprehensible steps taken in recent years, opposes the foreign goal of the country and the people's mandate.
By bringing in Gavrilov in 2019, you raised doubts and question marks about the country for the first time, however, in reality, the government's foreign course will change in 2021, when Bidzina Ivanishvili, the then chairman of the 'Georgian Dream' party, leaves Georgian politics. Here begins a great deal of confusion as to who is responsible for this new course.
The most visible example of this is insulting the top leader of the European Council and canceling a document drawn up with his participation in such a way that no one considered it necessary to even warn him. In the same year, the EU loan was rejected. You've never stopped the anti-European rhetoric, blaming and insulting our partners. In the end, all this came to the extent that we let the former EU Ambassador out of the country with reprimands and accusations," said Zourabichvili.
