Irakli Kirtskhalia: Once Funding Was Cut, We Saw How the So-Called Protest Based on ‘National Values’ Fizzled Out

The protests have clearly lost momentum, and this is linked to the most important factor funding, Parliamentary Majority Leader Irakli Kirtskhalia said in response to a question about ongoing anti-government demonstrations.

“We all remember those protests inspired by false narratives and financed with significant amounts of money. We have seen numerous investigations and court rulings, as well as journalistic investigations into what was actually being planned, how preparations were being made and where the funding was coming from,” Kirtskhalia said.

According to him, the protests largely disappeared following the introduction of legislative changes and a subsequent decline in funding.

“We adopted important laws, which were followed by numerous so-called protests driven by the same false narratives. Protesters claimed they were fighting for the country and defending its democracy. Our response was simple: no genuine protest exists without legitimate grounds.

These protests had no such grounds. They were based solely on falsehoods and misleading narratives so-called demonstrations planned by an agent network and supported from abroad.

Once these crucial laws came into force laws that are important not only for Georgia but for any independent, self-respecting country their funding began to decline. As their financing decreased month by month and year by year, we saw how the so-called protest supposedly based on ‘national values’ gradually fizzled out and ultimately disappeared.

What remains is a fragmented group of what appears to be paid party activists operating on a reduced budget, gathering somewhere every Saturday or Thursday. The term ‘sect’ suits them well, because that is how sects behave they decide that on a particular day they will dress a certain way, march somewhere and then, presumably, go for coffee or gather somewhere afterwards,” Kirtskhalia said.