“Shame”! 76.0
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Wednesday, September 4
Protest resumes in front of the building of the Parliament of Georgia in the format of the rally instead of the television format. “The specific requirement is not to endorse Giorgi Gakharia on the post of Prime Minister. To nominate another candidate - any. Our request is that Gakharia should not be promoted, this country should be lead to a normal proportional representation and not too early elections so that the Georgian public can make an informed choice. If there will be attempts to do knacks, our answer will be appropriate,” said one of the organizers of the rally, Shota Digmelashvili.
“Promoting the minister guilty of insulting his own citizens is Bidzina Ivanishvili's personal decision. With that decision, Ivanishvili declared open war on civil society,” reads a Facebook event created to support the rally.
Organizers and supporters of the rally say they will do everything to prevent the appointment of Interior Minister as head of government. Opposition representatives, including members of the parties “European Georgia” and the “United National Movement”, are at the rally.
Meanwhile, details about the confrontation between the organizers of the "Shame" and the representatives of the "National Movement" opposition group were revealed in the square near the parliament. As media found out, organizers of the rally protested Grigol Vashadze’s right to give a speech at yesterday’s rally. According to Maestro TV, Grigol Vashadze is on the so-called “blacklist” of politicians who should not be allowed to speak at the rally.
“For almost 76 days every political party has its own speaker, and the people you see on our political scene will manage to come out of our stage at any given time. As I have information, Grigol Vashadze was not among the people on our list of speakers. We are playing by the rules that we have agreed upon,” - one of the organizers of the rally, Nodar Rukhadze said.
Leaders of "European Georgia" also partially agree with the organizers of the "Shame" movement and believe that the protest is organized by young people and that they must decide who will come to the tribune and who will not. Akaki Bobokhidze says that "Tbilisi is a big city and if anyone wants to protest, they have the opportunity to hold a rally elsewhere.”
MP Giga Bokeria, a member of European Georgia, believes that nominating Giorgi Gakharia as prime minister is to woo the public and declaration of a political war. According to him, the government will respond with peaceful and bitter protest.
Patrol police are mobilized outside the parliament. Traffic on Rustaveli Avenue is not interrupted at this time.
Giorgi Gakharia's nomination for the post of Prime Minister on September 3, after the end of the session of the political council, was presented by ex-Premier and chairman of the ruling party, Bidzina Ivanishvili. Vakhtang Gomelauri is nominated as Georgian Interior Minister and Irakli Gharibashvili as Defense Minister. As for former Defense Minister Levan Izoria, he was named Secretary of the Security Council.
Demanding the resignation of Giorgi Gakharia for several months, part of the population staged protests on Rustaveli Avenue.
After a peaceful rally outside parliament on June 20, part of the protesters stormed the building. The riot police dispersed the rally and used tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets several times. As a result, 240 people were hospitalized, 4 people were injured and 2 lost their eyes.
Protests on Rustaveli Avenue began after Sergei Gavrilov, a member of the Communist Party of the Russian Duma, addressed the members of the Inter-Orthodox Parliamentary Assembly from the seat of the Speaker of the Parliament. This was followed by a wave of protests and the resignation of Irakli Kobakhidze, the Speaker of Parliament at the time.
Prior to the investigation of the June 20-21 rally case, the head of the Department of Special Tasks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was suspended.
