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On Sunday, thousands of Georgians honored late Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, whose bizarre death on February 3 shocked and unsettled the country’s political circles.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said in his speech to honor the late Prime Minister on February 6 that Zhvania’s death “is a huge test” for the country, adding that “no one should die so unreasonably.”
According to the official information, Zurab Zhvania died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a faulty gas heating devise in his friend’s apartment on February 3.
Mikheil Saakashvili was speaking in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi, where Zurab Zhvania’s body was moved on Saturday.
“I want to tell my friends [referring to the dozens of official delegations from foreign states, which arrived in Tbilisi to bid farewell to Zurab Zhvania]: do not be afraid,” Saakashvili said.
“And I want to tell our enemies: do not have any hopes that we will fail. Zurab Zhvania died but we are alive. Do not have hopes that we will fail to accomplish the process that we have started… We will become a strong nation,” Mikheil Saakashvili added.
He also called on the nation to stand together. “If we want to learn to win we should learn to be united in times of tragedy,” the President stated.
Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze also delivered a speech and said that “we will show the world that we can stand together in times of tragedy. We should show that we can accomplish what we have started.”
Nino Burjanadze also said that Zurab Zhvania “brilliantly demonstrated the Georgian nation’s democratic aspirations,” when he said, at the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe in 1999, when Georgia became a member of state of the Council of Europe member state, “I am Georgian and therefore I am European.”
A letter of condolence sent by the U.S. President George W. Bush, in which the U.S. President says that he was shocked by the death of Zurab Zhvania, was also read at the farewell ceremony.
Following the service at the the Holy Trinity Cathedral, the funeral ceremony moved towards the Georgian Parliament. Zurab Zhvania’s coffin remained outside the Parliament for several minutes. It was symbolic for several reasons: Zhvania was regarded as an architect of the Georgian parliamentary system, as he held the Parliamentary Chairmanship from 1995-2001 and on November 23, 2003 Zurab Zhvania addressed thousands of protesters outside the Parliament and announced: “It is the revolution of flowers, the Rose Revolution.” The peaceful power transition that took place in Georgian in 2003 has since been dubbed the Rose Revolution.
Zurab Zhvania was buried at Didube cemetery in Tbilisi, where other prominent Georgian public figures are buried as well.
It is expected that President Saakashvili, who has assumed the Prime Minister’s duties, will launch active consultations with the government and parliamentary factions on February 7 in order to discuss the nomination of a new Prime Minister. According to the law, Saakashvili has to nominate a new Prime Minister before February 10.
