Giorgi Vashadze talks about two options for uniting the opposition

Giorgi Vashadze, leader of Strategy Agmashenebeli, hopes that the pro-European opposition association will be expanded. He advocates the joint participation of pro-Western opposition parties in the upcoming elections.

On TV Pirveli, the politician said that the three political forces (Strategy Agmashenebeli, Droa and Girchi – More Freedom) began the process of consolidation long before the elections so that they had enough time “for greater consolidation in subsequent phases”:

“We tend to talk about unity publicly long before the elections. All unity is destroyed by the corridors. If all the rules on which agreement is reached are not made public, unity will be destroyed. I have this experience with the United National Movement (UNM). Then a non-public agreement was violated when the UNM “thrown” my majoritarian district.

With Zura [Джапаридзе] and Elene [Хоштария] we agreed on the following:

We have a common strategic task to sober up the people and openly say that the Georgian Dream does not lead us to Europe;

If tomorrow we talk about even larger associations, at least in this format, [надо] have written rules, including primaries [предворительное голосование]who should be in what position.

According to him, there are “two options for fighting”:

“Let there be a flank of the National Movement and another pro-European flank, consisting of other parties, and we will try to defeat the Georgian Dream from two flanks. The second option is that in the next elections there will be a battle between pro-Russian and pro-European [сил].

“I am for a single big front and flank. We must unite parties, non-party people and experts as much as possible. Participation with ten different numbers [оппозиции] will not work. There must be one single [выборный номер] “On the one hand, number 41 is pro-Russian, and on the other hand, any number, pro-Europeans,” Vashadze said.

He also added that Zurab Japaridze, the leader of the Girchi – More Freedom Party, spoke on this subject with the leader of the UNM, Nika Melia. Melia said that he considers participation in the elections on a single opposition list doomed to failure.

Vashadze also noted that he would like the Lelo party to participate in the unification, but has not yet decided on a decision on the For Georgia party of former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia.