Georgian ruling party MPs, as well as other GD officials and pro-Ivanishvili pundits, have welcomed and openly supported a recent ultra-right, anti-Western rally in Tbilisi.
The rally has widely been viewed as Georgian Dream’s response to March protests that forced the Government to withdraw a Russia-style law on ‘foreign agents.”
"There were people who came thinking about their own country, their national interests, and I think nothing was discussed there except love for Georgia and Georgia", while also calling on the opposition to take a leaf out of the ultra-right's book and "put national interests back into their own vocabulary," Parliament’s speaker Shalva Papuashvili said.
"As soon as someone talks about Georgia, national interests, etc., the label is immediately attached, as if it were anti-Western," he added.
Tbilisi Mayor and GD Secretary General Kakha Kaladze thanked the participants – many of them bused in by the authorities -- "to show their support for peace and the success of the country". He also thanked "all those people who are full of patriotism, who are happy about the success of our country, the economic development".
GD MP Nino Tsilosani celebrated the protest, saying that "against the background of the recent very aggressive and warlike demonstrations, the gathering of thousands of people oriented towards peace and imbued with love for the country was of course very pleasant to see". MP Tsilosani added that the desire for peace and the protection of values united her with the demonstrators.
On 30 April, radical groups linked to the GD gathered in Tbilisi to protest against the West's attempts to 'drag Georgia into war with Russia' and to praise the government's actions to 'preserve peace'. They also raised the issue of Georgia's possible neutrality and non-alignment.
The organizers called for the UNM leadership to be described as a dictatorship, which 'must be enforced by appropriate legal means', and for EU countries to respect Georgia's sovereignty and not intervene.
Dozens of minibuses were seen near the protest site, carrying hundreds of people from outside Tbilisi, many of whom were seen by the media to have been recruited by the GD for an exchange of money.
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