Opposition Calls for Large-Scale Protests

The eight-party opposition coalition has called for a large-scale protest rally outside Parliament at 6pm local time on March 16.

“Much will depend on that day,” Giorgi Khaindrava, an individual member of the coalition, told about two thousand supporters outside Parliament on Thursday.

There are now up to 60 hunger strikers camped outside Parliament, according to opposition leaders.  

March 13 marked the fifth day in a hunger strike for five coalition politicians – three of whom are MPs. Others have been refusing food for three and for some four days.

Six lawmakers from the New Rights Party camped just outside Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze’s office inside Parliament are on their fourth day. They have complained that they were not allowed to bring blankets into Burjanadze’s reception foyer.

Public Defender Sozar Subari, after visiting the hunger strikers, said a situation in which lawmakers saw no option other than a hunger strike was “not normal.”

“Regardless of one’s views, human decency dictates that we show concern,” Subari said in an appeal to Burjanadze on March 13. “Yesterday I visited the MPs on hunger strike in your foyer and found that they had been prevented from having blankets. As well as hunger, they now suffer from unbearable cold. I ask you to allow them to bring blankets inside the reception room to ensure humane conditions for them.”
 
Also on March 13, the hunger strikers from the New Rights Party complained that journalists were not allowed in. Burjanadze, however, denied this, saying there had never even been a request to let them in. Later on March 13, journalists were given access. “We will continue until the authorities come to their senses,” MP Davit Gamkrelidze, the leader of New Rights Party, said.

Protesters outside Parliament, led by the opposition coalition, are demanding a recount of disputed votes of the January 5 presidential election, which, they maintain, will lead to a repeat election. They also demand the release of all, what they call, “political prisoners” and the creation of conditions for free and fair parliamentary elections. The New Rights’ demands are mostly focused on the upcoming parliamentary elections. They indicated on March 12 that they were willing to suspend protests and resume talks with the authorities if the ruling party dropped a controversial constitutional amendment on electing 75 majoritarian MPs. The draft, however, was endorsed with its final reading later on the same day.

Meanwhile, five opposition activists, including one lawmaker, have begun a hunger strike in Kutaisi, Georgia’s second largest city. Media sources reported they were camped outside the city’s local municipal building.