On October 28, Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili gave consecutive interviews to 17 different European and U.S. media outlets, some of which have already been aired and some of which will be aired in the next few hours. As she later announced during her speech at the rally organized in response to the allegedly stolen elections in Georgia, the purpose of these interviews is to share what is really going on in the country and the environment in which the elections were held.
Media outlets she spoke to: BBC, CNN International, LCI, DW News, Reuters, Le Point, Liberation, EURACTIV, Sky News, AP News, Rai, AFP, DPA, Swiss Radio, France Info, TVP, Redaktions Netzwerk Deutschland.
The President’s main message to the media was about the violations identified on October 26, which led her to not recognize the results. She was asked why she made this decision when international observers have not yet declared these elections fraudulent, despite all the violations they have seen. The President explained that “international observer missions do not condemn the legality of the elections so close to the elections,” they are waiting for more information that local observers and the President herself already have, which is the reason for her decision.
“The evidence [of rigging] is the fact that 70% of the Georgian population in all opinion polls is supporting the European way and the European integration, and suddenly it has turned around in one election, when people have been coming out steadily to support this European path.” She said that all the methods to rig the elections were used, singling out the new one for which the electronic voting was used by the ruling Georgian Dream party. She described how this was arranged, saying that IDs were confiscated from the citizens before the elections and then “have been used seven times, ten times, seventeen times” during the elections. She added: “All this evidence has been and is being collected, what is now in process is showing the systemic nature of the violations that have taken place,” the President told CNN.
President Zurabishvili was asked if she was directly accusing Russia of interfering in the elections, to which she replied, “No, it is an accusation that the methodology used and the support, of most probably Russian FSB types, is shown in this elections, because it was very sophisticated, with the use of multiple forms of fraud”. She mentioned that the GD party had already copied Russian tactics in the pre-election campaign, and the links between them and Moscow, which was proven by the warm congratulatory messages coming from Russia after the elections, pointed to the Russian involvement.
The President further stated that the most important thing now is that the Georgian people don’t accept these elections, and as for what she expects from the European Union now, she mentioned that now Brussels needs to be “very clear” about what it is asking the government to do.
She was asked about the current visit of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to Georgia and the message it sends, to which she replied that he has “no mandate from the EU” and his visit now is only as “a friend of the current ruling majority” in an attempt to psychologically manipulate Georgians.
The President also spoke about the decision of the opposition not to enter the Parliament. She was asked whether it would be more fruitful for them to enter and form a coalition with Georgian Dream, to which she replied that GD doesn’t need to be in a coalition, it already has the parliamentary majority to carry out the work of the parliament independently. She also mentioned that their intention was to get the constitutional majority to impeach the president and ban the opposition, but they couldn’t fake the results to that extent due to the high turnout of Georgians. She added that if the GD hadn’t written such a high number of votes to themselves, they would’ve entered the Parliament as a strong opposition force, but “they chose dictatorship, not democracy.”
Commenting on the peaceful protests she called for and the goals behind them, she said that protests in Georgia are often held to demonstrate the will of Georgians. When asked about the goals of the protests, Salome Zurabishvili said that the outcome should be twofold: an international investigation to help find additional evidence of rigging, and then the holding of new elections, which will be up to the political parties and the people to decide. As for what’s next if the protests fail, she said the opposition already has plans to call for new elections with the support of European partners who would ensure the transparency of the elections.
To be updated…
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