Editor’s note: This publication was planned as a clarification and addition to the already published text. But the situation is developing rapidly, so we decided to release this text as a separate publication.
A new trial or the start of a new election campaign
On August 22, 2023, the imprisoned former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, through his representative Sofo Japaridze, started a large-scale election campaign. Earlier, he appointed her as his public relations representative.
“Let’s call it the beginning of the election campaign. But the most important thing is that this means the beginning of a winning campaign,” — said Sofo Japaridze.
According to her, as Saakashvili’s representative, she will visit all regions of Georgia to meet with his supporters and discuss further actions.
“Saakashvili showed us the highest level of patriotism by coming here and sacrificing himself. Despite the fact that his state of health is very serious, he continues to fight for the salvation of the homeland within these four walls… He will definitely fight to the end for the freedom of the country and for the survival of the homeland,” — said Japaridze.
At the same time, the Human Rights Committee of the Parliament of Georgia warned that the politician has no right to conduct an election campaign in Georgia, as he is not a citizen of the country.
Giorgi Tskhakaia replied that it is now very difficult to predict the results of such a campaign, but this representation is more symbolic than actual:
“According to Georgian legislation, I am not sure that population size is a factor in elections. He will not be able to take part in the elections, this is a political statement, not a technical one. This does not mean that he will be on the list, for some issue, and that he will have to be voted for. Saakashvili is the founder of the party, which today is the main opposition party in Georgia. This statement can be defined not technically, but politically. He confirmed which side he is on and what he is doing in this process”.
Already a month later, on September 20, 2023, the trial of Saakashvili and former high-ranking officials accused together with him in the so-called “November 7 case” was resumed. He is accused of “exceeding official authority” due to the dispersal of the protest action on November 7, 2007, as well as the invasion of the special forces into the office of the “Imedi” television company. According to Georgian laws, he faces imprisonment for 5 to 8 years.
“In 2007, a series of anti-government protests took place across Georgia. The demonstrations peaked on 2 November 2007, when 40,000–50,000 rallied in downtown Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. People protested against the allegedly corrupt government of President Mikheil Saakashvili. Protests triggered by the detention of Georgian politician Irakli Okruashvili on charges of extortion, money laundering, and abuse of office during his tenure as defense minister of the country were organized by the National Council, an ad hoc coalition of ten opposition parties, and financed by the media tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili”, – it says on multiple sources.
“For Georgians, it is Mikhail who is associated with the intention of Georgia to be a member of the EU and NATO”
We asked Volodymyr Tsybulko why this court case was renewed against the politician. He answered:
“The case against Saakashvili is actually a continuation of systemic pressure on the “United National Movement” party, despite the loss of citizenship, of which Saakashvili still remains a symbol! For Georgians, it is Mikhail who is associated with the intention of Georgia to be a member of the EU and NATO! That is why the pro-Russian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili is promoting the legal process against Mikheil Saakashvili in order to radically limit the prospect, not so much of Saakashvili himself of returning to the top of power in Georgia, as of extinguishing all chances of his party defeating the “Georgian Dream” party in the upcoming elections!
The noisier the court process will be, the smaller will be the chances of ENR for revenge. It is surprising that the president of the country, a former French diplomat, Salome Zourabichvili, is a quiet ally of pro-Russian forces because her pardon of Mikheil would not so much return Saakashvili to active Georgian politics as open up mobility for his party. Mikheil Saakashvili`s departure abroad and his active media presence in the Western media would make the Georgian government extremely toxic! Therefore, everyone will drag out time at least until the end of the new electoral cycle! But this delay in deciding Saakashvili’s fate, with the refusal of mercy, looks like a bribe to Putin for sponsoring the “Georgian Dream!”
“This is quite an obvious massacre”
Giorgi Tskhakaia expressed a similar opinion; he believes that this is quite an obvious massacre:
“Everyone understands that what is happening now in Georgia is a politically motivated persecution of the former president of Georgia. They want to continue this process for political dividends. There is no trial and investigation, there is simply reprisal against a person who is now in prison, almost for completely invented reasons, under stupid topics that exist. If you read the cases that are put forward against Saakashvili – they are ridiculous, ugly, this does not mean anything good. Everything else that is being put forward now is a politically motivated action, they want to show in the future before the elections how bad Saakashvili is”.
We asked him if it could be that the case was reopened due to the desire to discredit Saakashvili’s party in the upcoming elections. He replied that this is rather a way to scare the population:
“Now everything that happens and will happen has one goal. Some new movement has begun to scare people with the idea that some kind of coup is being prepared by someone somewhere, in order to discredit the situation. According to the Russian attitude, the authorities are located, they cannot speak openly. Representatives of the authorities do not speak directly about the truth of the action, but some parliamentarians practically do not hide.
Since the mood of the people is very pro-Western, including in the situation with Ukraine, very pro-Ukrainian, they are deploying their propaganda machine under the Russian tune against Ukraine, against Saakashvili, against the entire Western civilization, they come up with everything from this perspective. The pro-Russian organizations that generally exist now in Georgia have their own television, on which they talk complete nonsense every day, and they look at it, they are preparing some group of people, with weapons, so that if someone wants a coup, they will protect, that is, they practically say that there will be internal bloodshed. This is all very low-value propaganda, which they broadcast on all controlled and Russian channels that deal with this propaganda”.
During the rally, Saakashvili said that opposition actions are beneficial to Russia and have a connection with this country and called the action “a talentless imitation of the “Rose Revolution”. At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that Russian TV channels broadcast the opposition rally in Tbilisi live.
“As for the rally, there is the best answer – he took political responsibility and resigned and appointed a new leader in 2007. He won in the new elections, but this does not mean that the dispersal of the rally was good. It is clear that this was organized with the participation of Russian special services, but this is not important now and today. Today it is important that after so many years, in 2023, to resume some kind of investigation is not even nonsense”.
He also added:
“There was a dispersal of the protesters, and there, during the dispersal, those people who were really offended by the authorities, by those reforms that were painful, definitely suffered. You understand that on the same day, all traffic police officers were fired. And other reforms took place. It is clear that some part of society was very disappointed or angry with the then government, and therefore this is a political process. And the fact that technical errors were made during the dispersal of the rally is also a fact. They have been proven; cases have been brought before people. But the person (the rally organizer – ed.) who led this process, they took him into their team, this government. And for some reason, he is not judged if he is guilty”.
Before that, Ukraine sent a request for the admission of the Ukrainian ombudsman to the ex-president of Georgia and Ukrainian citizen Mikheil Saakashvili, but no official agency has yet received a response. We asked Tskhakaia whether it is possible that the ombudsman will not be allowed to visit a citizen of Ukraine at all, he replied:
“It’s not that they won’t let us in, they won’t let us in anymore. From the first day of his appointment, the new ombudsman wants to visit a citizen of Ukraine in another country, but he cannot do this. This is against all canons, human, humanitarian, political, and everything else. By this, they record that for their dirty political purposes, they can spoil relations with the government of Ukraine. This is very low, unpleasant, and unacceptable. But everything is worth its price. And all the actions of the authorities that are now acting in their petty political views make such mistakes. This price will have to be paid both to them personally and to the state because in this regard it is represented by them.
The people, and very many people like me, and there are hundreds of thousands and millions of them – we are ashamed when representatives of power fall so low. Therefore, I really hope that they will finally gather common sense and begin to act as every European government in the world should act. And don’t look like a copy-paste of Putin’s Russia and government. They should look like Europeans, civilized, with values and without politically motivated persecution and all the other filth we see”.
We also asked whether such a delay in answering is not an attempt to hide the politician’s condition.
“Saakashvili’s camp is already very bad. A man who was probably 140 kg when he was in Ukraine, today weighs less than 70 kg. How can a person lose twice his weight without causing much damage to his health? He will need a lot of time to rehabilitate after physical and psychological abuse.
It is confirmed that the person was poisoned. Poisoned by whom? Without the special services, no one would have been able to poison him. At some point, the Georgian government was ready to physically kill Saakashvili, and destroy him, and they began to carry out this process, but something did not go according to plan. The results show that he was poisoned, and there was physical violence against him, about which he talked about how he was strangled, how he was dragged along the ground. He was especially taken to prison, where they staged a so-called “shumok”, and so on. Everything that they could do that was inhuman, they did”.
He added that when he was starving and taking some medicine, they showed this video and said that he was lying, he was eating something. This is real sadistic violence that has already happened to Saakashvili. Now any talk about the humanity of this regime has ended in his eyes, but he does not lose hope.
“I hope that based on the world community, and the influence of the Georgian government, which plays more with Russia than with the West, because of the attitude of the Georgian people towards the Ukrainian people and state, they will find strength in themselves and move from their very narrow political interests to protect the interests of Georgia.
It is not in the interests of the country to kill the third president of Georgia, who openly was and is the main anti-Putin movement. He was the first who showed the real face of Putin to the whole world and who practically did not give in to his demands. He is being killed by Putin at the hands of the Georgians themselves. This will be, firstly, the most dangerous, and secondly, a very shameful thing that can happen in the history of Georgia”.
Now we see the attempts of Saakashvili’s party to sway the Georgian people to their side in the elections, in order to ease the politician’s position in the future. Experts noted that the renewal of the old court process is meaningless and nothing more than an attempt to intimidate the population before the elections in 2024. Ukrainian ombudsman is still not allowed to see the politician, and his health remains in a bad state. The current government of Georgia still ignores international norms, laws, and basic humanity.
Tetiana Stelmakh
