Candidate Gachechiladze Unveils Program for 200 Days

Levan Gachechiladze, the nine-party opposition coalition presidential candidate, has outlined the key priorities for a possible Gachechiladze presidency, just two days before polling day.

Gachechiladze?s program is presented in bullet point format in a three-page document called 200 Days ? the number of days he has said he would stay office if elected. Gachechiladze has promised to scrap the presidential system in favor of a parliamentary one.

?I, Levan Gachechiladze promises that violence and injustice will end in Georgia very soon; nobody will be able to touch private property; nobody will be able to intimidate business; there will be no political police and elections will never be rigged. I promise that free media will never be silenced; nobody will have the right to insult the people? Let me keep my promises? I will be a ruler hired by the people and will be accountable only to the people,? Gachechiladze said in Saguramo, near Tbilisi, on January 3.

The key priorities of Gachechiladze?s program read:

? Strengthening the rule of law in Georgia to ensure the security of Georgian citizens, and the restoration of territorial integrity and sovereignty;

? Building democratic institutions to secure Georgia?s accession to NATO and the European Union;

? Probing into crimes committed under Saakashvili?s rule: dispersal of November 7 rallies and hunger strikers; violent closure of independent media broadcasts, investigation of Sandro Girgvliani?s and Amiran Robakidze‘s murders, as well as Zurab Zhvania?s death, punishing the guilty; 

? Unconditional release of political prisoners and pardoning of those jailed for petty crimes;

? Setting up a national commission on fundamental constitutional reforms to ensure a better system of checks and balances;

? Ceasing government pressure on the judiciary and implementing fundamental reforms to provide free and fair justice;

? Holding fair and transparent parliamentary elections;

? Observing the constitutional agreement between the Georgian state and the Georgian Orthodox Church;

? Launching talks with Abkhazians, Ossetians and Russians aimed at restoring the territorial integrity and defending state interests, as well as implementing peace initiatives;

?Initiation of the law on lustration;

? Setting up municipal police and abolishing the Department for Constitutional Security and Special Operations Department of the Interior Ministry;

? Eradicating elite corruption;

? Setting up a tax arbitration system;

? Increase the minimum pension and minimum monthly salaries to the subsistence level;

? Eradicating state racketeering of businesses;

? Suspension of privatization; investigation of violations in previous privatizations;

? Revision of ill-advised education reforms;

? Elaboration and implementation of a wide-ranging program on the development of Georgian culture, sport and science;

? Development of a multi-stage employment program, encouragement of small and medium sized businesses;

? Development of a state program to combat drug-addiction;

? Providing dignified living conditions for internally displaced persons before their return to their homes in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region [South Ossetia].

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