Ex-president Saakashvili says he is already in Georgia, urges people to take to streets after elections
Saakashvili says that he has returned to Georgia after eight years for the October 2 municipal elections. Photo: Euronews.
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Georgian ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili released a live video allegedly from Georgia’s coastal city of Batumi late yesterday and said that he is already in Georgia ahead of tomorrow’s municipal elections.
In the video Saakashvili has urged the public to vote for the United National Movement (UNM) in the elections and if not the UNM, then some other, smaller, ‘real opposition parties’ and not for the Georgian Dream ruling party (GD) or ex-PM Giorgi Gakharia’s For Georgia party.
He said that he will not appear in public until election day is over and called on Georgians to take to the streets on October 3.
If we get 100,000 people in the center of Tbilisi, we will end the current regime,” Saakashvili said.
The Georgian Interior Ministry says that Saakashvili has not crossed the Georgian border.
It still remains unclear how the ex-president, who faces a number of criminal charges in Georgia, managed to cross into the country from Ukraine.
In earlier statements Saakashvili pledged that he would return to Georgia on the evening of the election day.
The Georgian government said that he would be arrested if he really returned, while MEPs have urged Saakashvili to refrain from returning to Georgia not to spark tension and destabilisation.