Former President Saakashvili pledges to return to Georgia for upcoming local elections
Saakashvili vowed to come back to Georgia for the municipal elections earlier this year on April 20, 2021. Photo: Screenshot from video.
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The third Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has announced today that he will come back to Georgia for the upcoming October 2 municipal race.
Saakashvili in his video address, published on his Facebook page, called on Georgian emigrants to join him and come back to the country for the elections.
People who have the opportunity to take a vacation on election day, find your time and means for it and let’s all go to Georgia by land or air,” Saakashvili said.
Saakashvili who served as the country’s third president from 2004 to 2013 left Georgia back in 2013 after the Georgian Dream (GD) came to power in 2012.
He faces several criminal charges such as the violent dispersal of anti-government mass protests on November 7, 2007, raiding of TV channel Imedi by riot police,illegal take-over of the property and the other crimes.
However, Saakashvili said that these cases do not prevent him from travelling to Europe, ‘which proves that these cases are falsified,’ he noted.
Saakashvili also stated that the ruling party will try to fabricate the results of the elections, therefore ‘the public shouldn’t allow it to happen.’
There will be no revenge, we must end all rounds of revenge, but at the same time, Bidzina Ivanishvili (founder of GD, former PM and tycoon) will compensate for the damage he has caused to the Georgian people,” stated Saakashvili.
The ruling GD party responded to the former president’s announcement and called it ‘not serious.’
The seventh announcement has already been made regarding his (Saakashvili’s) arrival in Georgia, regarding the disruption in the country, he has never been able to do that and naturally, he will not be able to do it in this case either,” head of the GD Irakli Kobakhidze said.
The ruling party mayoral candidate and incumbent mayor Kakha Kaladze said that if Saakashvili arrives in Georgia ‘justice will be enforced.’
One of the leaders of the largest opposition United National Movement (UNM) party Giorgi Baramidze said that Saakashvili’s arrival to the country for the upcoming elections ‘will play a huge role in the mobilisation of the community.’
This is not the first time promise of the former Georgian president to return to the country. Saakashvili vowed to come back to Georgia for the municipal elections earlier this year on April 20, 2021.