Alasania-led Alliance Yet to Decide on Planned April Rallies

The opposition Alliance for Georgia has yet to decide whether it would share or not responsibility and be or not among organizers of the street protest rallies, which another group of opposition parties plan to launch starting from April 9 to demand President Saakashvili’s resignation.

“Consultations are still ongoing. If we agree [with other opposition parities] on a joint plan [of action] we will not only be participants of the rallies, but we will also be on a frontline,” Pikria Chikhradze of the New Rights Party said on March 18.

The New Rights Party, along with the Republican Party and Irakli Alasania’s political team, is part of the Alliance.

“This is a very serious issue [planned rallies] and it needs to be well prepared with thorough consideration of all the possible options in advance,” Chikhradze added.

Leaders of the Alliance for Georgia met with the group activists in Tbilisi on March 18 and announced about the launch of “a nation plebiscite” – a campaign involving collection of voters’ signatures joining the opposition’s demand for President Saakashvili resignation and holding of early elections.
 
Irakli Alasania, the leader of the Alliance, said at the meeting that consultations were underway with “political forces, which can participate together with us in a peaceful power transition.”

“We announce that these forces are standing together, but at the same time we should be aware of a responsibility that each of us bears before the future of our country,” he added.

Davit Gamkrelidze, the New Rights Party leader, said that the Alliance had an ambition of being “the most serious and strongest alternative to the Saakashvili’s regime.”

Davit Usupashvili, the Republican Party leader, said: “We are the best organized and strongest political force in Georgia and hence we have the most ambitious tasks.”

Alasania also told the Alliance activists that “our task will be considered to be accomplished when our Abkhaz and Ossetian brothers will attend this type of meeting.”

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