The Georgian opposition has finally unified. Just a couple of months ago, people didn’t think that the Georgian opposition could come together. Some Republicans didn’t hide the fact that they were a little skeptical towards the populist labor party, which, in turn, called the conservative political party an artificial laboratory, etc. All of a sudden, people remembered Irakli Tsereteli, who was once the political figure standing during the public meetings of Zviad Gamsakhurdia. There is only one thing that can bring the political parties of Georgia together: the aim towards destroying the “National United Movement”, which, to be honest, has ceased being united and no longer thinks about national interests. Recently, it is only thinking about itself and is after one thing: to keep power for as long as possible despite the fact that they hear many talking about the fact that they can’t really lead the movement. Citizens of Georgia fear that the movement will end up like the “Titanic”, except this time the iceberg is the people, which went in favor of revolution just two years ago.
The Georgian authorities don’t seem to care about the frequent public meetings taking place with thousands of participants. Just like before, they are cynical in whatever they do or say. This kind of behavior can be a sign of power. But if we take into consideration the fact that the country is in a terrible situation due to the errors committed by the authorities and their dilettantism, that behavior says a lot about their weakness.
It has already been three weeks that merchants are complaining about the installment of ATM machines and demand delaying that until the summer. The authorities don’t hear their complaints. They rarely comment on anything and when they do, they just say that the merchants shouldn’t complain because no matter what, they are going to install the ATM machines and those that go against this will pay big fines. Some members of parliaments tried to meet with the Prime Minister of Georgia regarding this issue and were even forced to go out on a hunger strike in the waiting hall. The Prime Minister met with them only after the strike. Alas, in vain because the Prime Minister simply goes along with the authorities’ decision.
At the same time, citizens participate in demonstrations against the subjective investigation regarding the murder of one of the accountants of Georgian banks Sandro Girgvliani (“168 hours” wrote about this in one of the previous editions). The high-deputy officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia have something to do with this. For a couple of weeks now, Tbilisi is speaking out on removing Minister of Internal Affairs Vano Merabishvili from office. President Mikhail Sahakashvili announces during a briefing that Merabishvili is a brilliant minister and it would be a waste of time to demand removing him.
“I’m not going to bring Shaliko, am I?” joked the president in front of the cameras.
That “Shaliko” is oppositionist leader of the Labor party Shalva Natelashvili, which, according to some sources, has a higher reputation than the president.
A school was burned down in Tbilisi. Mayor Gigi Ugulava appears on the television screens of Georgian citizens, but he doesn’t talk about the reconstruction of the school. No, he does talk about that but only after he blames MP and businessman Valeri Gelashvili in burning the school.
“There was a time when he actually wanted to buy the school and the nearby area, but we forbade him. That’s why he went and burned the school down,” says the mayor, which simply accuses him of the crime without recalling the fact that not only is there no trial, but there is no case. In regard to the allegations, Gelashvili said that he would sue Ugulava. In response to this, the mayor said:
“I don’t care if he sues me or not. I know for a fact that he burned the school down.”
These are just some examples of how the Georgian authorities are behaving themselves; authorities that consider themselves the democratic leaders of the post-Soviet region.
“Our MPs were arrested in Minsk because the dictators were afraid of us,” said Sahakashvili when he found out that the Belarusian authorities had fulfilled their promise and had not let Georgian MPs follow up on the elections.
“Georgia is going to continue the struggle against the authorities; we are going to do that for the sake of democracy,” said Sahakashvili yet again and confirmed the opinions of observers, according to which recently Sahakashvili is not speaking clearly on certain topics and is focusing more on abstract topics, such as the inevitable revolution, the fight against enemies, their mechanisms, etc. As if everything is over and now it’s time to go on to solving other issues.
One of the Georgian MPs, who had found out about what had happened with the MPs in Belarus, said in anger:
“Where are we sending the MPs? Why do we care about Belarus? Why are we sticking our noses into their business? It would be better if we take care of our issues first.”
I doubt that the authorities will listen to these words either…