Now is not the time for the opposition. They realize that they have to do something quickly, but it seems to me that they still don't have a good idea of what to do, and they are in a rather difficult process. Naturally, the government takes advantage of this - political scientist Gia Khukhashvili told "InterpressNews" about this, evaluating the steps taken by the opposition to protect votes.
According to Gia Khukhashvili, on the one hand, it is clear that the opposition has a problem, because in such a situation, when their abilities are quite limited in relation to the trust of the same people, it is problematic to make a plan.
"It's problematic because it's so easy to call, 'Let's start a permanent protest,' but the second thing is how convincing your plan is because we in Georgia are constantly in the cycle of creating great hopes and then being disappointed." Therefore, it is quite difficult to follow the public on this protest because often this protest ends in nothing and this skepticism is quite strong, especially when there is no concrete convincing plan that will definitely lead you to the result. So now is not the time to work for the opposition. They understand that they need to do something quickly, but it seems to me that they still don't have a good idea of what to do, and they are in a rather difficult process. Naturally, the government takes advantage of this," said Khukhashvili.
As for the position of "Gakharia for Georgia" in this process, in the opinion of the political scientist, Giorgi Gakharia does not deviate from the main task and clearly stated that he will fight to the end to confirm the will of the people, however, according to Khukhashvili, the fact is that many factors affect the current process.
"I think the key is, in the end, how the international community will look at these elections, and to some extent the government will also take these steps, that is, the government will continue to walk on the path of what is called "slow days towards Russia", if it now starts to throw down sticks, let's say, "Russian law" in the form of I have a strong doubt that this topic is already opening a certain area of doubt for them, and through the Constitutional Court, they might give it up, that is, the Constitutional Court will make a decision to annul it during the substantive review. Perhaps they will start throwing such blows in order to bring about some stabilization and soften the public perception that the government is moving towards Russia. In addition, some more steps will be taken in order to somewhat save face and soften these negative attitudes of the West, and at the same time, to marginalize the opposition. Everything depends on how adequate the opposition will be in this process.
To tell you the truth, I am tired of giving these advices [to the opposition] because the advice I gave before the election was not accepted by the opposition. This aggravated the situation. They somehow had the illusion and ambition that everything would be fine even in the form in which we reached the elections. I thought from the beginning that there were high risks here and it was not accepted. It seems to me that the ambitions of the opposition in the pre-election process far exceeded their real capabilities, and my advice was aimed at increasing their capabilities somehow, but the opposition did not accept this reality and faced the reality it faced. The opposition should understand that it is in the interest of society not to damage the long-term vector of the country's development," said Khukhashvili.
