Bokuchava Defends UNM's Alliance Decision, Acknowledges Party Challenges
By Messenger Staff
Tuesday, June 23, 2026
United National Movement Chair Tina Bokuchava said the party does not need an external audit to recognize the serious challenges it faces, as she addressed ongoing internal developments within the party.
Bokuchava said she had personally opposed joining the Opposition Alliance but ultimately deferred to former President Mikheil Saakashvili's judgment. "I believe that a democratic front for victory must be a broad socio-political coalition that confronts the regime together during elections, united against a single opponent. The alliance met neither of those criteria," she wrote.
She said Saakashvili had feared the UNM would be blamed for undermining opposition unity if it stayed out. "President Saakashvili believed that the UNM would become the target of attacks and that he personally would be blamed for undermining opposition unity. Therefore, I agreed with his decision that the UNM should join the Opposition Alliance," she said.
Bokuchava also dismissed suggestions that the party should now revisit the issue. "I do not believe it is justified to artificially revive this issue now. If anything is disconnected from people and their real problems, it is precisely this discussion," she wrote.
On the party's internal state, she acknowledged the toll of recent years while framing the party's survival as an achievement.
"Despite the imprisonment of President Saakashvili, Political Council Chairman Levan Khabeishvili, and the backbone of the Tbilisi organization, Irakli Nadiradze, despite having virtually no financial resources and facing constant threats of abolition, we survived. They could not abolish us, and they could not erase us," she wrote.
She credited the party's supporters, regional leaders, and its international affairs team, and called for an open internal process to address the challenges ahead. "We must overcome these challenges through an open, inclusive, sincere, and democratic internal party discussion, involving everyone, from the party's oldest and most distinguished members to those who have only recently joined us," she wrote.
She closed with a call for unity: "We will achieve victory with dignity, together, for Georgia."
