Nogaideli: ‘Traitor, Coward Saakashvili Must Go’

Former Prime Minister, Zurab Nogaideli, the leader of Movement for Fair Georgia, stepped up rhetoric against his former ally, President Saakashvili, calling him “a traitor and a coward.”

Speaking in Tbilisi-based Kavkasia TV’s daily talk show, Nogaideli said: “The traitor and coward President, who has lost territories has no right to lead the country and he must go.”

“What an evolution of Mr. Nogaideli,” a pro-opposition anchor of the Kavkasia TV’s program and an owner of the television, Davit Akubardia, told Nogaideli. “You have turned into a real radical – you say ‘traitor, coward’… I guess you have outstripped even the Labor Party in your assessments.”

“The existing reality makes me a radical,” Nogaideli responded.

He said that his party shared the demand of at least twelve other opposition parties and groups calling for President Saakashvili’s resignation, but also added that like others, his party also had its own tactics, which eventually might coincide. Nogaideli said that he planned a protest rally in Batumi, Adjara Autonomous Republic, on March 10 to call, among other things, “for resignation of traitor and coward Saakashvili.”

“The collapse of this regime will start from Adjara,” he said and added that other opposition parties could also join his party’s protest rally in Batumi, “which can serve as a good rehearsal for April 9” – the day when at least eight opposition parities have agreed to hold the rally outside the Parliament in Tbilisi. He, however, also said that right now he did not see “enough charge” in the society for the protest rallies.

Nogaideli, who served as PM from February, 2005 to November, 2007, alleged that President Saakashvili and his close associates, in particular Interior Minister, Vano Merabishvili, were behind the recent high-profile deals involving sale of Imedi TV shares. “I have no doubt in that,” Nogaideli said and also suggested that Saakashvili and Merabishvili were acting as local partners of UAE’s Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) emirate’s investment fund.

The local unit of RAK Investment Authority, RAK Georgia Holding, bought 90% shares of the Imedi TV and radio holding.

Nogaideli has also claimed that the Georgian leadership was using “millions of dollars” earned in recent years from arms procurement deals for acting “as co-investors” in RAK Georgia Holding’s projects in Georgia, involving several real estate projects, as well as port of Poti and development of free industrial zone there. “USD 2 billion has been spent on arms procurements in recent years, but in fact as it turned out after the August war, millions have been earned by Saakashvili and his associates from these deals,” he said and added that the authorities should make public spending made on arms procurement in recent years.

This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)