Political Movement minus Politicians

The People’s United Resistance Movement (without politicians) chaired by Davit Tarkhan-Mouravi has released a special statement on January 11. The statement denies any connection with the Georgian Party and its members; it suggests sentencing Irakli Okruashvili and Erosi Kitsmarishvili for “number of crimes” so that they steer clear of the “Georgian political and social space”. The Georgian Party refused to comment on the statement to the media.

Refuting their organisation has been created to shadow the Representative Public Assembly (RPA) the Movement also denied rumors of trying to attract members of Public Assembly and stressed they had established an open public movement where any other movements and NGOs could freely join their declaration. “Despite the fact that we both are fighting against Mikheil Saakashvili’s regime our internal formats differ, so there is nothing hostile in this issue,” read a special statement released by the Movement.

On December 22, 2010 around 80 well known people signed a declaration setting up the organisation and Tarkhan-Mouravi stated the movement would oppose the current regime in the country, although it would only include the public faces not politicians. Political analyst Ramaz Sakvarelidze doubted that than newly established Movement would be a “parallel structure” to the Assembly but would still try “to gather public forces.” Doubtful of any chance to unite the two organisations Sakvarelidze spoke of the trend of creating “parallel structures.”

“It has been necessary to raise public awareness in our country. That was the main reason for creating the Representative Public Assembly, in which the politicians disappointed the public. It was the same reason for establishing the People’s United Resistance Movement,” said the analyst stressing that “if there is a particular internal disagreement among the organisation’s members they should deal with these problems within their team.” Wondering why politicians as members caused problems for the Movement Sakvarelidze explained that the “People’s United Movement” according to its title should refer to any social groups.

Welcoming the existence of “healthy” opposition competition analyst Nika Chitadze spoke of the negative affect of the new movements to The Messenger. “No one should use people’s names for achieving their goals. Despite the fact that members of both the People’s United Resistance Movement and Representative Public Assembly claim they are unbiased and talk on behalf of the people most of their members have a political past. Their activities will have a destructive influence on Georgia’s national statehood and won’t end with positive results,” Chitadze said disapproving of the so-called independent analysts for participating in mass rallies and attending the sessions.