President Saakashvili said on June 15 that despite of “Russian money” being invested in Georgian politics ahead of the October parliamentary elections, “we will not allow votes, voters and political processes to be sold.”
“We will not let certain processes, whether electoral or other political processes, to hinder country’s economic development,” he said, adding that he was expecting Georgia’s economy to grow at least 8% this year.
“I’m sure we will win these elections,” he said while inaugurating Georgian central bank’s new cash center in presence of representatives of senior executives from some of the leading banks in Georgia.
“We know very well that large amount of Russian money is coming into Georgia with direct orders from the Kremlin,” he said.
“One has to be a real fool not to understand that this is Russian money,” Saakashvili added.
He said that while "some degraded politicians" in Georgia make themselves available for sale, "two things are not for sale in Georgia – the statehood and the Georgian people."
"One can buy a familiar face of the past… One can buy not a very successful representative of an art circle… but one can never buy any state institution in Georgia; we have no corruption in the state apparatus and we will not allow political corruption in Georgia, we will not allow votes, voters and political processes to be sold for no matter whether it is one, ten or hundred billion, because Georgia’s future costs much more than their billions," Saakashvili said.
“We will strictly observe the law and, by the way, the entire international community will applaud us for that,” he said.
"No one will be able to take us back into corruption, neither with political corruption nor with electoral corruption and no one will be able to bribe the state apparatus – that is my firm guarantee that I give to you. This [guarantee] relies not only on me personally, but… also on institutions that we have created – transparent, beautiful, solid, clear, non-corrupt and efficient institutions, which will protect people of Georgia and the choice of Georgia’s future," Saakashvili said.