PM Garibashvili releases public letter on ex-president Saakashvili
By Khatia Bzhalava
Thursday, October 7
Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Gharibashvili has released an open letter about the former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili stating that the most credible version behind his return to Georgia was his ‘wish to overthrow the Georgian Dream government.’
According to Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, the version that Mikheil Saakashvili deliberately went to prison and planned it in advance is absurd to him, as in that case, he believes Saakashvili would not have entered the country by violating the law, ‘like a burglar’.
“By doing so, he would intensify his own message about being a political prisoner. And now that he has entered Georgia by committing another crime, he has made his own claim groundless. Blaming his illogical decision on drug addiction is also absurd” said the PM, adding that Saakashvili’s ‘revolutionary intentions to overthrow the government were destined for failure’.
According to the letter, the United National Movement (UNM) has caused many kinds of trouble to the country for nine years, including committing numerous crimes, such as seizing all media outlets to present all their failures as success. As the PM states, Saakashvili planned to arrive in Georgia and overthrow the government with exactly the same “success” as he had “successfully” ruled the country at the time.
The letter reads that Saakashvili failed to take into consideration the fact that instead of the impaired state institutions of 2003, Georgia now has powerful state institutions, which hindered the ex-president from executing his plan.
“For years, the UNM and its propaganda party television stations have been trying to establish a false perception of a “collapsed state”. In reality, instead of a "collapsed state", Saakashvili faced a well-organized state system in Georgia,” reads the latter.
Garibashvili stated that Saakashvili's psychological and mental condition has changed drastically after imprisonment. However, according to Beka Basilaia, Mikheil Saakashvili's lawyer, the information spread by Garibashvili is not true, claiming that Saakashvili feels very strong, both morally and physically. He also stressed that the former president is ready to take any drug test in the presence of TV cameras and challenged Garibashvili to do the same.
The third president of Georgia, now a citizen of Ukraine who chairs the Executive Committee of the Ukrainian National Reforms Council, after being in political exile for eight years, was arrested in Tbilisi on October 1, ahead of the October 2 municipal elections. Saakashvili faces several criminal charges in Georgia such as violent dispersal of anti-government mass protests on November 7, 2007, unlawful raiding of Imedi television company by riot police, exceeding official powers by using violence and appropriation or embezzlement of budget money in large quantities. He has been recently charged for illegally crossing the border from Ukraine to Georgia.
