More Rights to Opposition – Saakashvili Says

President Saakashvili said that the ruling majority in the new parliament should create conditions wherein opposition would enjoy with more rights and power.

“It should be the task of the parliamentary majority and the government to help create situation, wherein [the opposition] will also be involved [in processes] and [the government and ruling majority should] do its best to give more rights to the opposition and we should defiantly do that in the next parliament [elected in the May 21 elections],” Saakashvili said while meeting with state-funded scholarship program alumni.

“We should give them [opposition] certain governmental levers, we should give more top level positions in the parliament and probably in the government – we can speak about it openly – to ensure that these people [in the opposition] are happy with the country’s success like the government, the majority and the society are,” he said.  “The fact that there is no such feeling – and there is no such feeling in a certain part of political opposition – I think is our weakness to a certain extent. Therefore, our task is to give more rights to them, as well as to give them more sense of responsibility and involvement, as well as a sense of sharing what is happening in Georgia, because Georgia is facing the existential challenges today.”