One of the leaders of the Georgian opposition, Giorgi Gakharia, commented on the parliament's decision to deprive members of his party of their deputy powers on the social network X. According to him, in such cases, we are talking about "opening the way for politically motivated criminal prosecution, abolishing immunity from fabricated charges and eliminating the main political threat before the municipal elections."
The oppositionist emphasized that a political boycott is a constitutional right that the Gakharia for Georgia party exercised after the "rigged elections of 2024" by refusing to join the "captured legislative body, but not giving up the mandate given by the people."
Earlier it became known that the Georgian parliament, which in fact acts as a one-party parliament, unanimously voted to cancel all 12 mandates of the opposition Gakharia for Georgia party. In particular, Teona Akubardia, Ana Buchukuri, Giorgi Gakharia, Levan Gogichaishvili, Zaza Tavadze, Beka Liluashvili, Natia Mezvrishvili, Berdia Sichinava, Kakhaber Kemoklidze, Roin Kochorashvili, Dmitry Tskitishvili and Zviad Dzidziguri lost their parliamentary powers due to “unreasonable absence from meetings.”
In addition, on July 2, former Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia Giorgi Gakharia underwent another interrogation by the temporary investigative commission of parliament, remotely connecting to the meeting. The discussion turned to the checkpoint set up by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia in Chorchana in August 2019. Years later, the ruling party accused the then head of the department of trying to provoke an escalation of the conflict with the Russian Federation, which could lead to a “large-scale war.”
Gakharia told the commission that the checkpoint was set up in an attempt to prevent borderization, since at that time Georgia did not control that area of the forest – it was controlled by the occupation forces. He stressed that using local residents for political persecution is unacceptable, and accused the authorities of turning former security officials into “false witnesses.”
“You turned the Minister of Internal Affairs of your own government and the former head of the State Security Service into ordinary false witnesses and eavesdroppers. Georgia did not have effective control over that forest at that time, the occupation forces exercised effective control over that forest. This is confirmed not by my words, but by the annual report of the State Security Service for 2019, the EUMM press release for 2019, as well as the statement following the 49th round of the Geneva talks made by the representatives of Georgia,” Giorgi Gakharia said.
