October 15, 2026 - The South Caucasus News - SouthCaucasusNews.com

Opposition Alliance, which unites nine Georgian opposition parties, announced an October 25 rally in Tbilisi titled “Georgia without Ivanishvili. Georgia deserves better,” protesting, among others, the ruling Georgian Dream party’s efforts to ban several opposition parties through the Constitutional Court.

The Alliance invited supporters to gather at the Tbilisi State University campus at 7 pm on October 25, with the event meant to kick off a major protest campaign to culminate in a larger rally on November 28, which falls on the second anniversary of the non-stop anti-government protests sparked by Georgian Dream’s announcement on halting EU integration.

The rally announcement came two days after the Constitutional Court said it was starting to review the ruling party’s lawsuit on its merits. Representatives of opposition parties targeted in the case reported receiving calls about first hearings being scheduled on October 21, 22, and 23.

Speaking at a press briefing on October 15, Gvaramia said that the party-ban initiative was not about depriving opposition politicians of their positions, but “about depriving the country of democracy.”

“It is about depriving our great ancestors and Georgia’s great history of their greatest aspiration: full membership in the European family,” he said. “[…] It is all about all the emptied regions and cities, about depriving Georgians of the opportunity to live in their ancestral homeland and forcing them to leave the country.”

Gvaramia vowed to continue challenging the ruling party in court and through street protests.

“We will be everywhere: in courtrooms, in Batumi, and, most importantly, on the streets of Tbilisi,” he said. “We will protest everything fearlessly and forcefully, with one central demand – Georgia without Ivanishvili.”

Gigi Tsereteli, chairman of European Georgia, further said that the planned demonstration was not solely an initiative of the opposition alliance, but was intended to bring together political parties, civic groups, and individuals who view free elections as essential to Georgia’s democratic future.

Speaking at the briefing, Tamar Chergoleishvili, leader of the Federalist Party, which was added to the party-ban lawsuit in April, said that the October 25 rally would mark the beginning of a broader protest campaign culminating in a major demonstration in Tbilisi on November 28.

“With this desperate move, Ivanishvili is merely revealing that he does not trust the Georgian people or their choices,” Chergoleishvili said. “If these parties are bad, then, logically, the Georgian people should not be voting for the very parties he is seeking to ban.”

She said that the proposed party bans would not change the opposition’s strategy. “Our plan is to expand peaceful and principled protests until we force Ivanishvili to make concessions,” she said.

Georgian Dream initially filed the constitutional lawsuit in November 2025, seeking to outlaw the United National Movement (UNM), Lelo/Strong Georgia, and Ahali/Coalition for Change. The lawsuit was subsequently expanded in April 2026 to include the Federalists and again in September to add For Georgia, the only opposition party still represented in Parliament. Each expansion required Georgian Dream to resubmit the lawsuit, resetting the court’s nine-month deadline to issue a ruling.

While the resubmissions initially fed perceptions that GD was deliberately dragging out the process, the premature resignation of Manana Kobakhidze, one of the Court’s judges, ahead of the start of proceedings sparked worries that the ruling party may be seriously considering using the Court to have its opponents declared unconstitutional.

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