Political Standoff Continues with No Sign of Breakthrough

• Authorities remain on stay away tactic;
• Authorities’ proposals remain the same;
• Opposition tries to give more momentum to protests;
• Alliance for Georgia’s wording on dialogue differs;

With the street protests entering into eighth consecutive day, no major sign of possible breakthrough has yet emerged.

The authorities continue tactic of staying away from protests with uniformed police having no presence on the protest venues and low presence around those venues. However, increasing number of reports of separate cases of attacks on opposition activists and supporters in recent days add some sort of anxiety to the situation on the ground.

On the political level, the scale of rallies has so far failed to force the authorities to go beyond of what they have already been offering to the opposition before the launch of protests on April 9; proposals remain the same: to start dialogue on constitutional and electoral reform to lay ground for a long-tem political stability and peaceful power transition in 2013 when President Saakashvili’s second term in office expires; direct election of Tbilisi mayor next spring is also part of the proposal. Senior ruling party official have indicated recently that possibility of a coalition government could be part of “a normal political dialogue” as well.

The opposition, organizing the protest rallies and consisting of over dozen of parties, tries to give more momentum to the protest saying that it would launch campaigning in the region from next week to bring supporters in the capital city.

On April 13 the opposition started what it called “a new wave” of protests, involving setting up of tents and mocked-up cells outside the presidential residence and public TV. On April 15 the opposition put one ‘cell’ outside the government and Prime Minister’s office, but unlike of other venues opposition activists kept no night vigil there. Meanwhile, several thousand opposition supporters keep gathering routinely at 3pm for several hours outside the Parliament every day listening to opposition politicians’ speeches.

In their public statements all the opposition leaders say that terms of President Saakashvili’s resignation should be major topic of possible talks between the opposition and the authorities. But some of them say that it might not be the only one. Unlike many other opposition parties, which are behind the protests, the wording of statements made by politicians from Alliance for Georgia on the matter also includes an additional phrase: “We are also ready to listen to the proposals of the authorities on how they view overcoming the crisis.”

Davit Bakradze, the parliamentary chairman, said on April 15, that there were “some sort” of contacts between the authorities and the opposition, but it was not a dialogue.

Orthodox Christians in Georgia are celebrating Easter over the weekend. Although opposition leaders said they would keep protesting, rallies would be of low key over the weekend; this period, some analysts suggest, may give more room to possible talks.

Peter Semneby, the EU special representative to South Caucasus is now back to Tbilisi holding separate meetings with opposition leaders on April 16.

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