Opposition Protest Outside U.S. Embassy

Protesters outside the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi, January 22. Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.Ge

A few hundred activists from the opposition Party of People gathered outside the U.S. embassy in a Tbilisi suburb on January 22 to protest what they called “the U.S. administration’s support for the falsified” presidential election.

“If not for the serious support of the U.S. government, falsification, fraud and violence would not have won in this country. This is the truth and we all know it,” Koba Davitashvili, the party leader, told supporters at the rally. “We do not like the position of the U.S. government. They ignored the numerous cases of falsifications and violence that took place during the election… The United States is a leader of democracy in the world, which also means a responsibility. So we believe that human rights and democracy should be the basis of the U.S. foreign policy, which unfortunately is not happening in respect of Georgia.”

He acknowledged, however, that the U.S. was an important ally of Georgia.

Although the Party of People is part of the nine-party opposition coalition, the rally was an independent initiative and other coalition parties did not participate.

Protest rallies outside the U.S. embassy in Georgia are extremely rare.