Football players who were heroes yesterday have become “traitors” today only because they didn’t share the spirit of the UNM supporters, writes the Speaker of the Georgian parliament on his Facebook page.

“This is nothing new for Georgia. A century ago, the Bolsheviks, also implanted from outside, tried to do exactly the same. That’s why they destroyed the intellectual elite, that’s why they fought against the church, that’s why their capital was somewhere else, not in Georgia.

That is why “Natsoba” [supporting of the opposition United National Movement party] is not so much a party affiliation, as much as an ideology that came from the outside like Bolshevism.

This is why the October 26 election is really a referendum on whether we want to remain a society where:

- to say “thank you” is a norm of behavior
- where the church is the force of community bonding
- where we are wary of moral and intellectual authorities
- where all Georgians are yours, not only those who are in your bubble
- where violence and harassment, ridicule and contempt are rejected.

That is why the October 26 elections are about who we are and what Georgia is”, - writes Shalva Papuashvili.