Georgian Opposition Wants to Get Rid of Saakashvili’s Post
// Georgian opposition lambastes president's rule
Things have come to crisis point in Georgia where joint opposition forces on Thursday launched a campaign “Georgia without President”. The movement was provoked by the arrest of the country’s former Defense Minister Irakly Okruashvili. Opposition hopes, however, that these campaigns will grow into a new revolution and will topple the Saakashvili regime. Meanwhile, authorities and opposition accuse each other of making advances to the Kremlin.
“I’m Not Scared!”
Leaders of joint Georgian opposition forces moved to grass-root voters “to explain to the people that Saakashvili has turned away from the road of democratic reforms and is steering the country to an authoritarian regime”. This is the essence of the program that opposition leaders passed a day earlier after they decided that officials’ attempt to silence opposition must be confronted.
“We’ll be meeting people in regions and Tbilisi the whole month, and to crown it all, we will go to Parliament in Rustaveli street to declare our demands,” David Berdzenishvili, one of the leaders of Georgian joint opposition from the Republican party, told Kommersant. “We are convinced that we will be followed by dozens or even hundreds of thousand people. A serious political crisis is brewing.”
Opposition parties got united into the joint movement after the arrest of former Defense Minister Irakly Okruashvili condemning it as a political move. The unification occurred on September 28 when some 15,000 people gathered on Rustaveli Street outside Parliament calling for the release of the ex-minister.
“Georgia without President” has become opposition’s motto. Head of the Republican Party, David Usupashvili, however, on Thursday refuted rumors that the joint opposition would be promoting elimination of the presidential post and establishing constitutional monarchy in the country. “We are for a parliamentary republic without the all-powerful president,” he said. “Under our model, the president should be the supreme arbiter rather than the ruler, let alone as all-powerful as Saakashvili is now. The country should be managed by the parliament and the government.”
Opposition showed on Wednesday how serious it feels about these plans staging an event at Tbilisi’s Chess Palace to gather signatures in support of the “I’m Not Scared!” motto. The assembly hall was so overcrowded that a lot of people had to queue outside to put their signatures on the motto.
“These signatures will be sent to President Saakashvili,” Georgy Khaindrava, Georgia’s former Minister for Conflict Settlement and employee at the Institute for Equal Rights, said. Mr. Khaindrava lambasted the president and said that the new Georgia without President movement demands that political prisoner Okruashvili be released. In addition, opposition insists on parliamentary and presidential elections to be held on time.
Shortly after Irakly Okruashvili’s dismissal, the Georgian president came up amendments to legislation to change election dates. The presidential election was re-scheduled for a date two months earlier while the parliamentary poll was to be held one year later, meaning that they both fall on December 2008.
Opposition explains this decision saying that the president is afraid of such a strong rival as Irakly Okruashvili. Rescheduling the presidential election he has knock downed his rival. In December 2008, Mr. Okruashvili will still be under 35, which does not allow him to run for presidency. As for the parliamentary election, opposition says that “Saakashvili is not sure that his National Unity will get the majority, while with a lost battle in Parliament he is sure to lose the presidential seat as well.”
Opposition said it would show at Tbilisi’s central square on Friday “a revealing documentary about Zurab Zhvania’s death”. “Until authorities explain how Zhvania died and answer other questions posed by Okruashvili, we’ll have nothing to talk about with them,” opposition leaders say.
The opposition campaign is to be crowned with a large-scale protest rally in central Tbilisi on November 2. “The parliamentary election took place in Georgia on that day four years ago,” the united opposition told Kommersant. “They were rigged and eventually led to a revolution. We want to show that any rigging or dishonesty is leading to unpredictable results.”
“U.S. Will Help”
Recent buoyant opposition activities have become a subject of serious concern of the president’s allies who seem to be afraid a new revolution. Kommersant sources reported that leader of Parliament’s New Right faction David Gamkrelidze has recently met U.S. Ambassador to Georgia John Teft and asked the United States to step in “to give positive influence on political processes in Georgia”. “Georgia is facing a difficult situation,” Mr. Gamkrelidze told Kommersant commenting on his meeting with the ambassador. “The Bush administration and the U.S. Embassy can now play a very positive role in ensuring that the situation does not follow a revolution scenario and does not overstep the constitution’s boundaries.”
Leader of Parliament’s majority Giga Bokeriya and head of the legislature’s international affairs committee Konstantin Gabashvili were even blunter in their comments. They accused the Georgia without President movement of “representing the Kremlin’s interests”.
Opposition was quick to react to the allegation. Two parliamentary factions, The Democratic Front and the Conservatives, suggested at a Parliament session that Georgia walk out of the CIS. “As we have now come under accusations of being pro-Russian, we suggest passing a decision to leave the CIS, which will once and for all show where we stand,” David Zurabishvili, one of the leaders of the Democratic Front, said. “We came up with the suggestion at the spring session, but the parliamentary majority voted it down, saying that Georgia will leave the CIS when it’s convenient it. We can’t understand why it’s not convenient to do it now. Our faction is ready to go through the procedure once again to achieve the result.
The Conservatives’ leader Kakha Kukava supported his colleague. “Leaving the CIS is necessary to get rid of Soviet legacy and those people from Soviet secret services who still occupy high ranks,” he said.
The Moscow factor will obviously continue to play an important – yet negative – role in the blazing confrontation in Georgia.
NATO Not Ready to Accept Georgia
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who has finished his Georgian visit, said Tbilisi must meet a number of standards to enter the alliance. He said the NATO will keep a close eye on the court reform in Georgia and how democratic and fair presidential and parliamentary election will be held in fall 2008 as the door to the NATO is “not automatic”. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, however, assured Parliament’s speaker Nino Burdzhanadze that positions of other countries were not going to be taken into account in Georgia’s accession to the NATO. The secretary general also praised Tbilisi for its “correct and reserved policy towards Russia”.
Observers say that Georgia’s relations with Moscow and unsettled conflicts in breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are the main impediments on the country’s way to the NATO. “The NATO won’t be able to admit, which means take responsibility for a state which does not control a significant part of its territory and confronts Russia,” political scientist Nika Imnaishvili told Kommersant. “The situation is so subtle that Brussels won’t name the real reason of the decline, that’s why they refer to the judicial reforms and flaws of electoral law.”
Olga Allenova, Moscow, and Vladimir Novikov, Tbilisi
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 05, 2007
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