Alt-Right Inaugurates Anti-Liberal, Russia-Friendly Party

The leaders of Alt-info media outlet, notorious for its hard-line anti-liberal, anti-LGBT, anti-Muslim stance, inaugurated today a new political party , which they named “the Conservative Movement.”

The group rose to prominence after orginizing the mobbing of LGBT Pride in Tbilisi on July 5, which left over 50 journalists injured, among them one cameraman, who died few days after the assault.

The constituent congress of the new party, held in Expo-Georgia in Tbilisi, elected Zurab Makharadze as its chairperson, and Giorgi Kardava as a Secretary General. Kardava, together with Irakli Martinenko, Irakli Morgoshia, Giorgi Kardava, and Vasil Gvilia were elected to the Political Council, while Giorgi Morgoshia, Aleksandre Kardava and Emre Kuchuk were approved as revision commission members. The latter is known for his anti-liberal and anti-feminist video blogs, recorded under the Alpha Dominant nickname. The party has thus has an all-male lineup of leaders.

Remarks at the Party Congress

Konstantine Morgoshia, one of the party founders and notorious far-right figures, chaired the constituent congress. He revindicated the pogrom of the Pride march by saying, “on the July 5, the whole world witnessed the beginning of the end of liberal dictatorship, and witnessed that billions, invested [from abroad] to degrade the nation and fight against the Orthodoxy and religion, came to nothing.”

Vowing to “change Georgian political reality,” Morgoshia, said “in this oldest orthodox nation journalists or politicians should not be daring to assault the Church and God.”

Criticizing both Mikheil “Saakashvili regime” and the Georgian Dream’s time in office, Morgoshia accused the dominant political actors of “getting directives from other countries, and in fact, not listening to the Georgian people.” He said the new party leaders have an ambition “to create a political force that will be pro-Georgian.”

Vowing that the Conservative Movement will hold its party congresses in Sokhumi and Tskhinvali, Morgoshia said they will launch “direct talks with the occupier [Russia], without feeling any discomfort.” “Because if we want to solve the problem together with the Abkhaz and Ossetian brothers, we should talk to them directly, we don’t need people that will forbid us from doing that.”

Morgoshia claimed “nobody can teach us about tolerance, but a moderate tolerance,” and brought “brotherhood with Jewish brothers during 26 centuries” as an example. He said “our Armenian, Azerbaijani, Jewish, and Greek brothers are also attending [the party congress], because Georgia is a cradle of national[ist] ideas and together with these people we will create a grand conservative union that will end liberal dictatorship in Georgia.”

Zurab Makharadze, newly-elected party chair also addressed the party congress, highlighting that the Conservative Movement will be an exception on Georgian political scene “that will connect its political future and  fate not to the directives coming from any of the foreign embassies, but to your will.”

Makharadze complained that Georgians are serving as “de facto vassals, while Georgian politicians are more concerned on how to integrate us in the West, rather that what Georgia’s interest [actually] is.” “I cannot understand how you could be pro-Russian, pro-American or pro-European. A Georgian should have a pro-Georgian orientation.”

Makharadze listed security, territorial integrity, extreme poverty and demographic issues as top concerns, asserting that “the key to all these problems is in the capital of our northern neighbor. [The fate of] Georgia’s territorial integrity is decided in the Kremlin.”

He said while direct dialogue is necessary with the “Abkhaz and Ossetian brothers,” “the key to that conflict is in Moscow, and whoever cannot see it is stupid.”

“If Russia is truly eager to have an alliance with Georgia, we are ready not just for a direct and unconditional dialogue, but for work to arrange a close partnership and allied relations [with Moscow],” Makharadze asserted, adding that “we are ready, in parallel to [defending] the major line of the restoration of our territorial integrity, to discuss Georgia’s integration into the security and economic system that is under Russia’s interest, but all of this should [in return ensure] improving Georgia’s fundamental interests of territorial integrity, security, economic advancement, and our demographic situation.”

Businessman Konstantine Morgoshia was one of the leaders of hard-line nationalist March of Georgians, and ran on this party-list as well as a majoritarian candidate of the Kremlin-friendly Alliance of Patriots in Mtskheta constituency in 2016 parliamentary elections. Morgoshia’s anti-gay actions brought him the public notoriety rise in recent years. In 2019, he co-led protests against And Then We Danced – a gay-themed movie premiere in Tbilisi; in 2018, he threatened Guram Kashia, Georgian National Football Team vice-captain with reprisals after Kashia wore a rainbow armband in support of LGBT community while playing for the Dutch top-division outfit Vitesse. Earlier, in 2017, Morgoshia faced investigation over initiating a Facebook conversation, joined by other of organizers of the “March of the Georgians” rally, containing threats of sexual violence against Tatia Dolidze, Georgia’s youth delegate to the UN in 2016-2017, for her public criticism of the rally. In 2018, Morgoshia told Georgian media he visited occupied Tskhinvali Region, to discuss with the occupying authorities the release of Georgian citizens detained along with Archil Tatunashvili, who was tortured to death in the occupied region.

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