Former first lady calls for anti-gov’t rallies, opposition reacts
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Wednesday, May 22
The former first lady of Georgia, wife of the third President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, Sandra Roelofs, who was running for Zugdidi Mayor in western Georgia and lost the race on May 19, has announced 'large-scale' rallies which will start from Zugdidi and will lead to the change of the current Georgian Dream leadership.
Roelofs, who was running in Sunday’s by-elections, claims that the elections were fabricated, the allegation which was not confirmed by local NGOs observing the elections.
“We start the protest wave from Zugdidi. It will spread across the country and end at Ivanishvili’s [ex-PM, billionaire, founder of the Georgian Dream party] palace in Tbilisi. We demand Ivanishvili leave the country. His actions, his illegal governance has already passed all the boundaries. We must not allow Ivanishvili [who now chairs the Georgian Dream party] run the country from the backstage and fabricate the elections,” Roelofs said.
Nika Melia, who belongs to the same United National Movement party, criticized Roelofs shortly after urging for protest, saying that the UNM has no resources, for now, to throw down the government, adding that such appeals for revolution, when the goal is hard to achieve, 'bring our supporters to desperation.'
Nugzar Tsiklauri from the UNM stated on Tuesday that Melia 'will have to provide explanations for his words,' as criticizing Roelofs 'only benefited Ivanishvili.'
The European Georgia opposition party, many of whose members once belonged to the UNM, refused to participate in the rally 'despite the fact the allegations towards the government are fair.'
A member of the European Georgia party Otar Kakhidze said that for now the party is focused on the election runoff in Mtatsminda district of Tbilisi, where the joint candidate of the Free Democrats and the European Georgia opposition will oppose the ruling party candidate.
Mtatsminda is the only district where the runoff will take place, as none of the candidates managed to overcome the mandatory 50 percent threshold on Sunday.
The runoff will take place until June 13 with only two fighting for victory: the Georgian Dream candidate Lado Kakhadze and the opposition candidate Shalva Shavgulidze.
The Georgian Dream won mayoral elections in five cities and all vacant seats in the eight-city assemblies of Georgian regions in the May 19 by-elections.
The by-elections came after the resignation of several mayors and members of the city assemblies, criminal charges brought against two mayors and the election of Salome Zurabishvili as the president of Georgia last year, whose seat as Mtatsminda MP became vacant.
International observers are expected to provide evaluations regarding the by-elections.
