Shalva Natelashvili demands President’s impeachment

Shalva Natelashvili, the leader of the Labour Party, held a briefing on July 20 at which he stated that the members of his Party are demanding the President’s impeachment by Parliament.

Natelashvili stated that the Labour Party has already begun to collect enough signatures on the document to impeach the President, the “head butcher” of Georgia, as he put it. Five opposition MPs have already signed the impeachment demand. Four of them are members of the Labour Party: Shalva Natelashvili, Ioseb Shatberashvili, Giorgi Gugava and Kakhaber Dzagania. Giorgi Tsagareishvili is the other.

Natelashvili called on all MPs from the Parliamentary opposition to sign the document, called “Saakashvili’s verdict”, and show the whole world that they are against the President and the present Government. He says they will send the text of the document to every member country of the European Union.

Labour member Nestan Kirtadze said that this briefing had no connection with the impending visit of Joe Biden to Georgia because Labour had been demanding Saakashvili’s resignation ever since the Rose Revolution in 2003. “We have long being demanding the resignation of Saakashvili and his inhuman and un-Georgian Government, which plunged the country into war and have brought it to dissolution and created a country where people’s rights are not protected. The resignation of the President and the present Government is spoken about daily in Georgia. It is the perspective of all of us. It is the right of the Georgian people to choose the President and Government they want,” Kirtadze told The Messenger.

Kirtadze said the impeachment demand has been in the Parliament since December 2008 but none of the MPs has signed it. “They have only expressed their support for the document verbally. The main purpose of this appeal is to encourage MPs to demonstrate their position with their signature,” she added.