Kakha Kaladze, the Mayor of Tbilisi and the Secretary General of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Friday said the former United National Movement Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili and UNM Chair Levan Khabeishvili had a “desire” to cause a change in the domestic political scene through “staging a confrontation, a revolution, a coup”.
In his remarks that followed UNM’s announcement of a protest rally in Tbilisi next month - after the party set a deadline for the Government for fulfilling conditions for receiving the European Union membership candidate status - Kaladze made the allegation against the party Chair and the former official, with the latter accused of “shadowy interference” in UNM affairs by some party members.
Merabishvili and Khabeishvili are stuck in the past, and with the ideology and ideas of 2003 [Rose Revolution that brought UNM into power], they want to change something in the country - create a confrontation, revolution, coup and so on”, the GD official said.
The ruling party’s Secretary General added “no one will succeed in bringing destabilisation to the country”, adding such attempts would be faced with “response within the law”.