Retaining current opposition could have made election victories easier, PM

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has said retaining the current opposition landscape could have made it easier for the ruling party to win future elections, as he defended the government’s lawsuit seeking to ban five opposition parties.

“Internal confrontation within the radical opposition is a manifestation of their weakness. The rest is not particularly interesting. The more they confront one another, the better. I think their days are numbered,” Kobakhidze told journalists.

He accused opposition forces of being more concerned about the views of foreign actors than those of Georgian citizens.

“They are always looking abroad. They are not interested at all in what people or society think of them. Their only concern is what people outside the country will say,” he said.

Kobakhidze said the government had submitted a “clearly formulated lawsuit” to the Constitutional Court seeking to ban five opposition parties.

He argued that, from the ruling party’s own political perspective, keeping the existing opposition forces in place might have made future election victories easier.

“From our subjective perspective, maintaining the existing political landscape might have been more advantageous for us. We defeat these radical united opposition forces, the so-called opposition, which in reality is an agent network, very easily every time. With these worn-out faces, it might have been easier for us to win the next elections,” he said.

However, Kobakhidze insisted that the government’s decision was not driven by its own political interests, but by what he described as the interests of Georgian society and the country.

“The main thing is that revitalising the political system and strengthening democracy are in the interests of the Georgian people,” he said.