Opposition leader Bokeria: "Regime should have ended sooner, real change requires persistence"

Giga Bokeria, leader of the opposition political movement The Federalists, stated that while it would have been preferable for Georgia’s national interests if the current regime had ended much earlier, this has not yet occurred.

Bokeria emphasized that opposition parties should not promise the public a specific timeline for the government’s downfall.

“No one announces the date of a revolution until the revolution is underway. It would have been desirable for our country if this regime had ended much earlier, but that didn’t happen. Even now, a significant portion of society wants to protest and change the regime, but we can all see that this desire alone is not enough to bring it down,” he said.

According to Bokeria, sustained civic resistance is necessary.

“Achieving this requires persistence—at the very least, continuing the protest action, expanding it, and reaching a level of public pressure that the repressive apparatus can no longer withstand. I don't know when that will happen. If someone claims to know the exact date, they are either unserious or irresponsible. When a regime is already in its final phase of collapse, you might say that a decisive rally will take place the day after tomorrow—but we are not there yet. There is still a lot of work to do for political parties and other groups. So giving a date now is meaningless,” he explained.

Bokeria also mentioned corruption within the ruling Georgian Dream party, pointing to internal investigations and arrests as evidence of systemic issues.

“We are seeing steps taken by members of the government themselves—arrests, statements revealing deep systemic corruption. These are actions of Ivanishvili, the Prime Minister, and the Prosecutor’s Office. It turns out that systemic corruption occurred while they held office—this is their own story. The regime financially benefited greatly from Russia’s war in Ukraine. Massive capital and migration from Russia brought huge amounts of money into the country, allowing bureaucrats and officials to enrich themselves unlawfully, while the country made zero progress,” he noted.