Georgia: President offers to hold early election to defuse crisis, opposition leaders missing

Text by Molly Corso; Photos by Sophia Mizante: 11/08/07

A day after the imposition of a state of emergency in Georgia, President Mikheil Saakashvili proposed an early presidential election as a way to resolve the country's political crisis. The offer, however, does not address the closure of two pro-opposition television stations. In addition, officials have not addressed the reported disappearance of two opposition leaders accused of collaboration with Russian intelligence services.

In a surprise televised address on the evening of November 8, Saakashvili stated that he wanted to give the opposition the chance to become "the people's choice" by holding presidential elections on January 5, 2008. A referendum, he proposed, should determine the date of parliamentary elections, one of the main sources of dispute between the government and opposition. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

A constitutional amendment passed earlier this year allows for simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections, with the date to be named by the president. One opposition leader expressed cautious optimism in response to the proposal, although heavily tempered by criticism of the president after the violence of November 7.

"Yesterday we saw President Saakashvili commit political suicide," said Tinatin Khidasheli, one of the leaders of the Republican Party, the central member of the ten-party opposition coalition that staged the November 2-7 demonstrations in Tbilisi. "This is the result of that political suicide."

The opposition, Khidasheli said, will announce a presidential candidate on November 22, the fourth anniversary of the Rose Revolution that brought President Saakashvili to power. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. "On January 5, Georgia will have ... the people's choice," she asserted.

Outrage at the tactics used by the government to disperse protestors on November 7 will no doubt feature heavily in the opposition's campaign. In his televised speech, Saakashvili defended police actions, stating that law-enforcement officers "protected not the government, but rather Georgian democracy and the Georgian people."

The president declared a state of emergency late November 7 after riot police forcibly broke up demonstrations in the capital. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. According to official sources, over 500 people were injured when riot police used tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to clear the streets. The government also closed two television stations and temporarily prohibited all television and radio stations, with the exception of government-controlled public television and radio, from broadcasting.

As part of the presidential order, no public meetings or demonstrations are allowed in the country for 15 days. Undeterred, roughly two dozen people, though, gathered outside Tbilisi's Holy Trinity Cathedral early November 8. Police blocked vehicular access to Rustaveli Avenue, the main street through downtown Tbilisi and the site of most of the November 7 clashes. Georgian media also reported that police had broken up a student protest with tear gas in the Black Sea port city of Batumi.

Opposition leaders said early on November 8 that they plan to abide by the demonstration ban as they consider their next political steps. Former foreign minister Salome Zourabishvili – head of the Georgia's Way party, a member of the opposition coalition – denied media reports that she had taken part in talks with Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burjanadze.

Amid an uneasy truce, opposition leaders have shown little sign of softening their accusations against Saakashvili. The 10-party coalition accuses the president of exaggerating a threat posed by Russia in order to justify efforts to tighten his administration's grip on power.

The reported disappearance of two opposition leaders alleged by the government to be working with Russian intelligence is among the accusations increasingly cited by opposition leaders to substantiate their claim. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Konstantin Gamsakhurdia, son of the late President Zviad Gamsakhurdia and head of the opposition Freedom Party, has not been heard from since late on November 7, when he joined other opposition members at Tbilisi's Holy Trinity Cathedral, party spokesperson Natia Toidze told EurasiaNet. Toidze said that she has not been able to locate Gamsakhurdia at any hospital, nor to confirm media reports that he was arrested. "His family does not know where he is," she added.

Labor Party leader Shalva Natelashvili has similarly disappeared, according to party employees contacted by EurasiaNet. Republican Party member David Usupashvili claims that police broke into Natelashvili's office early on the morning of November 8. The Georgian Interior Ministry could not be reached for comment in response to these reports.

One other opposition coalition leader, falsely reported in Tbilisi on November 8 to have died after clashes with police, has added to the opposition's list of grievances against the government. Koba Davitashvili, a coalition leader and head of the opposition People's Party, claims that he was kidnapped and beaten by on the afternoon of November 7. "A death squad kidnapped me – that cannot be explained [by a Russian plot]," he told EurasiaNet after being released on November 8 from a military hospital in the nearby city of Gori. He suffered a broken arm and has numerous contusions on his face.

Davitashvili claims that he was beaten by seven men when he went to Tbilisi's Eliava Hardware Market in Tbilisi to buy an electricity generator for the demonstrations. The men, he says, whisked him into a commandeered mini-bus, taking him to the Gori hospital. He was only released, he said, when Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burjanadze called the hospital on November 8 and demanded that staff let him go.

While Davitashvili agrees with President Saakashvili that a Russian threat to the country's stability exists, he denies government claims that some opposition parties are involved. "The threat from Russia exists – Russia controls a third of our territory; that is a fact – but Saakashvili gambles with these facts," he said, referring to the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Allegations made by government supporters that demonstration organizers are working in concert with Moscow are "not true," Davitashvili asserted, "because all parties that are part of the National Council of opposition parties ... signed a document supporting Georgia's accession to NATO."

The Russian government has categorically denied the allegations that it is attempting to overthrow President Saakashvili's administration. "We want to announce with full responsibility that Russia is no enemy of Georgia; it is a friend of Georgia and the Georgian people," Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mikhail Kaminin stated at a November 8 news briefing in Moscow.

Meanwhile, international observers, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), have condemned the government's decision to use force and to close television stations in a bid to quell the unrest in Tbilisi. In a November 8 statement, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that the government's actions are "not in line with Euro-Atlantic values."

NATO, along with the Council of Europe, is sending observers to Tbilisi to speak with Saakashvili and the opposition leaders about the situation.

For now, Saakashvili's ability to reinstate order and control is the most important task facing Georgia's president, argued political scientist Alexander Rondeli. The government, though, he added, "should take some blame" for the crisis.

"I think he [Saakashvili] was pushed into a corner," Rondeli said. "[Right now] he needs to show his own people that the state is firm [and] the state functions. That is the most important [thing for] Georgia today."

Parliament has 48 hours to sign the president's November 7 order invoking a state of emergency, although Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Mikheil Machavariani has indicated that the government still hopes that the political standoff can be solved through dialogue.

"We hope calm will be restored today and tomorrow.... I hope parliament will not need [to approve] this measure," he told reporters from Georgian Public Broadcasting, the only television station currently allowed to air news reports. [See related EurasiaNet story].

Editor's Note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi. Sophia Mizante is a freelance photographer also based in Tbilisi. Elizabeth Owen, EurasiaNet's Caucasus news editor in Tbilisi, contributed reporting to this story.