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Alt-Right, Pro-Russia Party Chair Talks Resignation

Zurab Makharadze, former alt-right Conservative Movement chair giving interview to Alt-Info media outlet. April 26, 2022. Screengrab from Alt-Info's video

The Conservative Movement party, notorious for its leaders spearheading July 2021 homophobic pogroms and pro-Russian stance, has replaced Zurab Makharadze with Giorgi Kardava as the party chairman.

Speaking with Alt-Info, the party’s TV network, Makharadze cited today “personal difficulties” as the reason behind resignation and weeks-long absence from public eye.

“My father passed away first and then my marriage collapsed because of my wrong actions,” he said.

The alt-right leader noted it was “impossible” to carry out the functions of the party chairperson given the circumstances and his condition.

“At one moment during this difficult time I asked the boys (party colleagues – ed) and they practically covered for me… When I really needed to, I had to leave,” he noted.

“Who serves as the general secretary or the chair [of the party] does not carry a big significance,” Makharadze asserted.

In the interview, he also claimed to have spent the 48-day-long Great Lent at a monastery, prior to Orthodox Easter of April 24. He refused to specify which monastery he had gone to, however, claiming journalists — “gremlins” — would bother the priests if he disclosed the location.

Makharadze leader also denied rumors about a rift inside the group or that he had gone on a working visit to Moscow.

The leaders of Alt-info media outlet, hard-line anti-liberal, anti-LGBT, anti-Muslim outfit, inaugurated the Conservative Movement party in November. Makharadze became the party chairman during the inaugural session.

In mid March, amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, he made a dubious statement on the need to spend a month or so working “on the ground, in a different format,” prompting speculations he left to Moscow for a working trip.

Georgian media broke the story of Makharadze’s resignation yesterday.

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