Instead of planning a picket of the newly elected parliament, the opposition should acknowledge its “temporary defeat” in the struggle against the authorities’ “violence and fraud” and prepare for a new stage in the struggle, the Republican Party said on June 3.
The eight-party opposition bloc and the Labor Party have called for a large-scale protest rally on the day the new parliament is set to convene for the first time. They have threatened to seal off the parliament building so as to prevent ruling party MPs gaining access. The purpose, they said, is to force the authorities to agree to repeat parliamentary elections.
The Republican Party, which according to official results received slightly over 3% of the vote in the May 21 parliamentary elections, has, however, warned other opposition parties that the move would “inevitably lead to a further strengthening of the state’s repressive machinery.”
Davit Usupashvili, the Republican Party leader, said at a news conference that the opposition’s planned blockade would be used by the authorities to justify the use of force against protesters, which would be then followed by more repression against the opposition.
Usupashvili elaborated his party’s position – which seems to be an alternative to the current political discourse of opposition protest and government insistence on meeting the challenge head-on – in a comprehensive newspaper article published by the Georgian daily Rezonansi on June 3.
“If peaceful demonstrators try to picket the parliament to prevent MPs getting in, the authorities will have a firm legal argument for using force,” Usupashvili writes. “Hence, the democratic world would be able to justify the Georgian authorities’ decision as a legitimate use of force. This in turn, would give the authorities the chance to carry out wide-scale repression ‘to reveal a network of rebels’ and ‘to protect constitutional order.’ This process would leave the people and the opposition politically, legally and emotionally defeated… Saakashvili would resist any ultimatum to resign and instead would use it to justify large-scale repression and to destroy the opposition movement for several years to come.”
“That is why the hawks within the Saakashvili administration are looking forward to the opposition picket on Parliament.”
In the article, which also contains some caustic remarks about what he calls “the less than serious bragging” of some opposition politicians, Usupashvili says that the Republican Party tried in vein to convince colleagues from the other opposition parties to give up plans to picket Parliament.
“First of all, we should remember that it was not by picketing and storming the parliament that the government was changed back in 2003, but instead it was [then President Eduard] Shevardnadze’s decision to resign that led to a transition in power,” Usupashvili says. “So we should be thinking not about how to picket the parliament, but about whether this action will lead to Saakashvili’s resignation and a change of government or not.”
He then outlines why he thinks a repeat Rose Revolution is impossible now. The Shevardnadze administration, Usupashvili contends, was totally “worn-out” and weak.
“Saakashvili is a ruler, whose mind is eclipsed by absolute power,” Usupashvili writes, “whose political gendarmerie controls the movement of each citizen in the country and who is publicly or privately supported by influential western circles in a struggle with ‘anti-western opposition.’”
He also points out that unlike in 2003, when the opposition was supported by the nation-wide television station, Rustavi 2 TV, there is no such media support now.
Usupashvili predicts economic trouble – inflation and job cuts – this autumn, as a result of unjustified government spending on election promises.
“Deepening social hardship is expected by autumn, which will trigger a new strong wave of protest. So it is Saakashvili’s plan to neutralize the opposition and to increase his grip on the mass media – Imedi radio being the most recent example – which will be easy to achieve in the context of a ‘failed coup’. The attempted picket of Parliament will only serve this purpose.”
The Republican Party leader calls on the opposition to give up its “desperate” and “pointless” plans to picket the parliament and instead to launch “a new stage in the struggle with new methods.”
In a recent televised interview Usupashvili said that his party had “a concrete action plan.” Although he declined to elaborate on the plan, he said if implemented repeat parliamentary elections would be held no later than next spring.
The Labor Party and the eight-party opposition bloc have already publicly rejected the Republican Party’s position.
“We think that it [the opposition plan] makes sense,” Zviad Dzidziguri of the Conservative Party – part of the opposition bloc – said. “But I want to say that the authorities are putting massive pressure on various opposition groups to distance themselves from the planned protest rally.” He, however, also said that he did not mean to suggest that the Republicans had yielded to such alleged pressure.
