Georgian opposition demands fresh elections or else

Text by Molly Corso; Photos by Temo Bardzimashvili: 11/07/08

In the first massive street protests since the August war, Georgian opposition parties on November 7 demanded new presidential and parliamentary elections in 2009. A newly formed coalition of five parties presented a list of demands – and deadlines – to the authorities and threatened large-scale protests to force President Mikheil Saakashvili's resignation if the government does not comply.

The November 7 protest in Tbilisi marked the one-year anniversary of the government's clash with protesters last year. Organizers pledge that the rallies will continue past the one-year anniversary.

"Today we started the second part of our protest. This is the first day – we are telling the population our action plan so we are going ahead and we will end this protest in the spring," Levan Gachechiladze, who finished second to President Saakashvili in the 2008 presidential race, told EurasiaNet.

Gachechiladze pledged that massive, nationwide protests will start in April 2009 if the government refuses to set dates for new presidential and parliamentary elections. (April 9 marks the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Soviet crackdown on Tbilisi protestors that left 20 dead.) In addition to fresh elections, the opposition coalition is also focusing on an ongoing conflict over ownership of the private Imedi television company.

Protest leaders announced that they will stage a 24-hour protest outside of Imedi headquarters on November 23, the fifth anniversary of Georgia's 2003 Rose Revolution, if the station has not been handed over by then to the estate of the late Badri Patarkatsishvili, the Georgian-born oligarch who founded the television company.

The station, once Georgia's most widely viewed TV outlet, became a focus point of subsequent opposition complaints against the government after special police units forcibly closed down Imedi's broadcasts. Since Patarkatsishvili's death earlier this year, the station has come under the control of a distant relative, Joseph Kay, whom the opposition claims is muzzling Imedi's traditionally critical voice at the government's behest.

Political scientist Archil Gegeshidze believes that using Imedi's ownership as a battle call is a "rational tactic" since it unites several parties under one banner and addresses the real concern of media access.

"The opening up of media is seen as a major precondition for the first debates about the August events," Gegeshidze said. "Unless they are successful at [getting free media] from the government, nothing else makes sense to demand."

But while Gachechildze and other organizers promoted the protest as a public call for the return of Imedi's "rightful" ownership, most speeches concentrated on President Saakashvili's mishandling of the August war with Russia.

"These people [the government] made people celebrate the worst loss in Georgia over the past ten years? he [Saakashvili] gathered the people and called this a victory. What victory? We lost half of Georgia, we lost the country," Goga Khaidrava, a former state minister under Saakashvili, told EurasiaNet.

"[T]herefore, today is a symbol that the Georgian people and the society of Georgia will not make peace with this disgrace and this disgrace will leave Georgia," he said in reference to Saakashvili. "I think that today we are all witnesses to the birth of a new Georgia."

As one activist held overhead a black-and-white photo of the newly elected American leader, rally speakers outside of parliament tagged US President-Elect Barack Obama as a potential helpmate for building a more democratic Georgia.

Khaindrava took issue with allegations that the protest would profit Russia by suggesting that Saakashvili is unpopular at home. Several opposition speakers during the rally defended their right to gather in public and speak out against the war.

"For us, that [Saakashvili's regime] is worse than Russia," he said. "Russia has been acting like this for 300 years.... those barbarians are with us. What can we do? We should not develop? We should not speak the truth? We should not meet with people?"

Presenting Saakashvili and his government as a clique of "elitists" out of touch with mainstream Georgia was another recurring theme. As a crowd formed outside the presidential residence, speakers charged that Saakashvili had allegedly "hidden himself" in a sushi restaurant to escape the protest.

Fewer than one thousand protestors joined leaders from the Labor Party, the Conservative Party, the People's Party and the Movement for a United Georgia in front of the parliament to mark the anniversary of the November 7 crackdown. The New Rights Party signed the group's list of demands on November 6, but was not present at the rally.

Several other opposition leaders were also noticeably absent, including former Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze, former Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili, leader of the Georgia's Way Party, and the centrist Republican Party. No opposition party represented in parliament participated, either.

The protest lasted several hours before peacefully breaking up outside of the president's residence in central Tbilisi. EurasiaNet reporters saw four buses of special forces police gathered two blocks away from the parliament where the protest began, but there was no police interference during the rally.

The Georgian government has attempted to play down the anniversary during the past few weeks. On October 27, Saakashvili told the nation that "big lessons" were learned from the decision to use tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse peaceful protestors last year.

Analyst Gegeshidze argues that the current administration has little to fear from such protests anymore. However, he noted that "nothing can be excluded" in the future.

"If the opposition has learned lessons from the past performances and succeeds in running the protest well, then [this] event should be recognized as the starting point of a process that will [continue] into the winter and spring," he said.

Editor's Note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter in Tbilisi. Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photographer also based in Tbilisi.