On October 27, President of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili addressed population and international communities, through press briefing. The full transcript in Georgian is available. Here is the unofficial translation:
“Greetings. First, I want to express my deepest gratitude to every Georgian voter who cast their ballot for Georgia’s European future. You were many, you won in these elections, and no one has the right to take this European future away from us. I want to thank those who fought under extremely unequal and unfair conditions in electoral commissions to protect your votes. I want to thank the journalists who fought under even worse conditions to document as many violations as possible within their capacity.
However, the violations were so numerous and diverse that it was practically impossible to capture everything in broadcasts. We witnessed something extraordinary – this was total falsification, a complete theft of your votes – utilizing every method seen in various countries, or in this country, that could be used to falsify elections. Furthermore, today’s technologies were employed to such an extent that technology was used to whitewash the falsification – something unprecedented.
We were witnesses and victims of a Russian special operation, one might say, a new form of hybrid warfare conducted against our people, our country. Several months ago, this government – which I will now call “force” rather than government – adopted a Russian law. Subsequently, many different Russian laws were adopted – a whole series that contradicts European recommendations and obstructs our European future.
Now, during these elections, they took away our right to vote. Russian-style elections were conducted, they took away our electoral institution, because after these elections, it’s very difficult to imagine what new elections might look like in this country if nothing changes. They took away our constitutional right to vote – they took away citizens’ ID cards here, from very many, and thus their right to participate in elections – in various forms, once again, and they took away our emigrants’ right to participate in elections, violated their constitutional right by not opening polling stations, and not only this.
Various methods and forms were used there as well, because practically one hundred thousand emigrants fought hard to be registered, whereas previously very few participated in elections. Despite this, only 33 thousand managed to vote. If these people fought to obtain this right, if they crossed 2000 miles in America and overcame many obstacles in various European cities – this wasn’t done to not vote, and something happened there that needs investigation. There’s very much to investigate.
I am also very grateful to our foreign partners, observation organizations, who recorded all violations and didn’t back down from documenting what happened here in the elections, but this is not enough.
Today, I want to say here, as the only remaining independent institution in this state, I want to say that I do not recognize these elections. These elections cannot be recognized. This would be equivalent to recognizing Russia’s entry into Georgia, Georgia’s submission to Russia. I didn’t come to this country for this. Our ancestors didn’t live for this, and we won’t accept this for our future generations. No one can take away Georgia’s European future, because I am not just one person, I am an institution, and I am an institution that today represents Georgia’s population, and I want to address the population and say that we must stand together and declare that we do not recognize these elections, we do not accept Russia and its entry into Georgia in this form, this new form of conquest.
We will stand together – with us, and I with them, are parties who participated in the elections, who defended precisely the European future, the Charter. Together with them, I want to tell everyone, and invite you tomorrow evening at 7 o’clock, so we can all say together and declare to the world and to each other that we do not recognize these elections, we defend our constitutional right to peacefully protect every vote, but most importantly, our future and the possibility that fair, democratic elections can be held in this country in the future. We won’t concede this right to anyone, this is ours, this is yours, and we will say this together tomorrow. This will be a symbolic demonstration of everyone together, so we can declare this to the world.
I want to address our partners, Europeans, Americans. I’ve heard statements made from various sides, and we are all very grateful for these statements, but everyone must know, beyond our borders, that protecting Georgia, protecting Georgia’s future in this region, protecting the geopolitical balance, protecting this region’s European future, this means protecting the people and not establishing any connections with this illegitimate government.
You cannot protect this country’s population this way. You can only protect the population by protecting the population’s rights, democratic rights, in this country; and just as you protected Georgia when the government wanted to adopt (and did adopt) the Russian law and you stood with the population, similarly after these elections you must stand beside us, the population, because these elections did not happen, did not take place, are not legitimate and nothing can make these elections legitimate. Thank you very much.”
