Salome Samadashvili: Banning political parties will be the beginning of additional problems for Ivanishvili, including in terms of international pressure, but it seems Russia's assignment must be fulfilled

"Banning political parties, in whatever form it may occur, will be the beginning of additional problems for Ivanishvili, including in terms of international pressure, but it seems Russia's assignment must be fulfilled," stated Salome Samadashvili, one of the leaders of "Strong Georgia – Lelo," on PalitraNews' show 360 Degrees.

As Samadashvili stated, the Kremlin wants to safeguard itself against a turn of events similar to what occurred in several countries, "where Russia controlled the situation, but the people got rid of the pro-Russian government."

"I have the feeling that this was Russia's demand—to ban pro-European political parties in Georgia and remove them from political processes because it is important for Russia not only to have a government in Georgia today that refuses EU accession, but it is also important for them to safeguard themselves against unexpected turns like those in other countries, where Russia controlled the situation and then pro-European forces managed to defeat the pro-Russian regimes. Therefore, Ivanishvili's assignment from Russia is to destroy all pro-European players. Let no one think that the Russian law, whose goal is to abolish non-governmental organizations, was written in Tbilisi. Nor were the anti-constitutional laws against which we have filed a lawsuit. Banning political parties is happening on the basis of specific laws. The Venice Commission directly stated regarding these laws that they shake the country's constitutional order.

We in 'Lelo' filed a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court in due time to determine the constitutionality of these laws. Imagine the legal absurdity we live in: they should have reviewed these laws first to see if they were constitutional, and only then reviewed the lawsuit written on their basis. They refused us this.

This government has entered into such absurdity that the idea of banning parties is damaging primarily to itself. If this lawsuit is granted, it creates a legal basis for recognizing the independence of our occupied territories. This is the main state problem. The second problem is that this finally halts the process of joining the European Union.

Ivanishvili does not understand that he can ban a party, but he cannot ban more than a million people—and that number is growing—who want change in this country.

This government faces many challenges. Banning political parties, in whatever form it may occur, will be the start of additional problems for Ivanishvili, including in terms of international pressure, but it seems Russia's assignment must be fulfilled," Samadashvili stated.

Salome Samadashvili also spoke about the situation in prisons, stating that instead of caring for the people, the government is occupied with internal criminal showdowns.

According to Samadashvili, the criminal underworld in the country is used for political purposes. She presumed that the criminal division was managed from the State Security Service (SSSG), and now that there are shifts in the upper ranks of the SSSG's governance, this has exacerbated the situation among representatives of the criminal underworld.

"We have been talking for a long time about how the criminal system is merged with Bidzina Ivanishvili's vertical of power. Now, when for various reasons they decided to implement systemic changes [I presume that this criminal element was managed from the SSSG], where the former regime was dismantled within the SSSG and an attempt is being made to replace it with another regime, this caused tremors in various sub-units.

For how many years have we been saying that the criminal underworld is used for political purposes—not only for elections, but also during crackdowns, attacks on citizens, etc.?

When the criminal underworld is part of the system, when there are tremors in the upper tier of management, this is a natural result, and this result represents a deterioration for the citizens of Georgia in every aspect because, instead of taking care of the people, the government is occupied with internal criminal showdowns," Samadashvili noted.