PM Garibashvili: Saakashvili planned to overthrow gov’t, but failed as expected

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili says that the ‘most credible’ account of why ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili returned to Georgia after eight years in political exile was his ‘wish to overthrow the Georgian Dream government.’ However, the ‘operation was as poorly planned as Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) had run the country while in power.’ 

Garibashvili stated that Saakashvili has only now realised the failure of his attempts and his psychological condition in No. 12 Rustavi prison is ‘severe,’ and he is asking for immediate release. 

• PM Garibashvili: ex-president Saakashvili will leave Georgia only after serving sentence

The UNM members are in a complicated situation as well as they do not know what to do to make Saakashvili free,” Garibashvili said in a letter released earlier today. 

“Saakashvili’s revolutionary plans were destined for failure. If he appeared on Rustaveli Avenue on October 3, the Georgian police would have dispersed a 5,000 men rally very easily and he would be detained without much effort. Saakashvili may not remember that Giorgi Gakharia is no longer the country’s interior minister,” Garibashvili said. 

My letter from prison
My dear associates and my Georgian community.

When I left Kyiv and came here, I knew that I would most likely be arrested, with fabricated, false verdicts which were issued by order of Putin. No country in the world except Russia recognizes this sentence... pic.twitter.com/ffA8VPvhz6

— Mikheil Saakashvili (@SaakashviliM) October 2, 2021

• Saakashvili ‘deeply touched’ by Ukrainian president’s support

He says that the UNM under Saakashvili had been engaged with ‘taking anti-state and irrational steps’ and Saakashvili’s return was also planned in an unreasonable way.'

Saakashvili was also unable to take into account that instead of the weak state institutions back in 2003 (when the UNM overthrew the Eduard Shevardnadze’s government), state institutions are powerful now,” Garibashvili said.

Saakashvili, now a citizen of Ukraine who chairs the Executive Committee of the Ukrainian National Reforms Council, was arrested in a flat in Tbilisi on October 1, ahead of the October 2 municipal elections. 

Saakashvili claims that he ‘put his life at risk’ to help his UNM party win the municipal elections and remove the Georgian Dream government from power via snap parliamentary elections. 

• What criminal charges are filed against recently arrested ex-president Saakashvili

He was convicted in 2018 in Georgia in absentia for abuse of authority and has also been charged with four other crimes, including the recent ‘illegally crossing the border’ from Ukraine to Georgia.