Okruashvili: Saakashvili Greater Threat than Russia

Irakli Okruashvili, former defense minister, said Georgia was in a situation wherein removal of President Saakashvili from power “is justified with any humanely method,” as he posed “greater threat” to the country than Russia.

Okruashvili, whose party Movement for United Georgia is part of group of  13 opposition parties planning to launch street protest rallies from April 9 to demand the President’s resignation, said in a televised interview that he personally had no presidential ambitions.

The interview, which was recorded in Paris on March 24, was aired by late on March 27 by the Tbilisi-based Maestro TV, which covers mainly the capital city. Okruashvili, who has received political asylum in France, was sentenced to 11-year prison term in Georgia in absentia last year.

“After [the August] war politicians should give up manipulating with the issue of restoration of the territorial integrity, especially during the election campaign, because that is an issue, which will be impossible to resolve in next ten or fifteen years in the best case, if not in the next twenty or twenty five years,” he said.

Okruashvili said that after the August “military adventure” Saakashvili had “no legitimate right to stay in power.”

“I know that the remarks, which I will say now will trigger lots of sharp comments, but I have to say it anyway – this is the case when removal of Saakashvili from power is justifiable with any humanely method. He is today the number one threat for the country and the greater threat than Russia,” Okruashvili said.

He said he did not believe that Russia was interested in removal of Georgia’s current leadership and said such rhetoric was part of the authorities’ “propaganda.”

“A weak figure [in the Georgian leadership] like Saakashvili is more acceptable for Russia,” Okruashvili said. “Saakashvili, who has almost no western support and no one in the west is even saying hello to him, is more acceptable for Russia. New leader in Georgia means new hope… One thing is clear: Saakashvili is a headache for both the Georgian people and for the international community.”

“If in 2003 [the Rose Revolution] was called the democratic revolution, than today too the same right exists to repeat it; is there enough resources or not for that purpose, that’s another issue,” he continued. “It is up to the Georgian people, it is our duty to maximally painlessly remove Saakashvili from power. How that will be achieved? No one has the answer on that today… A right vision, a joint action plan on where we are moving is required here, instead of changing plans every day. If there is a clear vision and joint plan [by the opposition] it will be achieved.”

“Removal of Saakashvili will be a painful process and it won’t be able to achieve in a day; it won’t happen on April 9,” he said.

Okruashvili said that unity of the opposition was the only “medicine that will help to removal Saakashvili.”

“We [the opposition leaders] should forget all the personal regrets and mutual confrontation that we might had in the past,” he said and added his party’s relation with the one of former parliamentary chairperson Nino Burjanadze’s was a good example of that.

He said that in 2007 when he was arrested, Burjanadze, who was the parliamentary chairperson at that time defended the authorities’ stance about his arrested and “made a speech in the Parliament which amounted to accusing me in the state treason; but today I have no problem in relations with Burjanadze, because we will fail to achieve our joint goal without forgetting personal regrets of the past.”

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