"There will be pressure from Europeans, and we will have to participate anyway"—this is a 'trauma' carried over from Charles Michel. There will be no pressure."
One of the leaders of the Coalition for Change, Zurab Japaridze, wrote this on social media.
According to him, if new parliamentary elections (with a new administration and a fair chance of reviewing electoral disputes in court) are not held and all political prisoners are not released, then participation in the local elections in October will result in the following:
The Central Election Commission will legitimize the numbers from the October 26 elections.
The torture of hundreds of people by the regime in early December will be legitimized.
The sentencing of dozens of political prisoners detained under criminal charges will be legitimized.
All recent restrictions on the media, political activities, civil society, and protests will be legitimized.
The process of breaking international isolation will begin, and the regime's rule will be rapidly legitimized.
The Rustaveli protests will end, and it will take years to build a new battleground.
On counterarguments:
"There will be pressure from Europeans, and we will have to participate anyway"—this is a "trauma" carried over from Charles Michel. There will be no pressure. The Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities has already stated that these elections should be postponed (for many reasons). Even if that weren’t the case, this is our decision to make.
"We will prepare better this time and win in some places"—No matter how many places you win, the regime will write whatever numbers it needs. We are playing football in a football tournament, but they are playing rugby against us. All the referees are on their side. UEFA is telling us, "That’s not football, that’s not how refereeing works, and if you play like this, you can’t participate in our tournaments." The regime, however, insists, "This is football, and we know better than Europe what football is," while breaking our bones. In such a situation, talking about forming a better strategy and winning is unserious.
"We won’t win, but we’ll strengthen our position in local councils and start dismantling the regime from there."—We've seen how the opposition "strengthened" after the stolen 2020 elections and what that led to: creating a facade of democracy that bought time for the regime. As a result, we now have far less freedom than we did 4-5 years ago.
"We won Tbilisi on October 26, and we will win the mayoral elections now too, and then..."—The regime will not give up Tbilisi or any other important point under any circumstances. It will not show weakness. That’s its nature. It will write whatever numbers it needs. It will change the electoral system in whatever way is necessary to eliminate risks.
There’s a Hungarian guy, László, standing on Rustaveli every day. He can tell you exactly what Orbán has done in this regard.
That’s how I see it," writes Zurab Japaridze.
