Opposition Plans ‘Last Phase of Dismantling of Saakashvili Regime’

The opposition leaders announced on April 16, that they would keep “modest” rallies over the weekend, during the Orthodox Easter, and would launch “last phase” of their drive to force President Saakashvili to resign from next week, involving mobilization of supporters in the provincial regions.

Irakli Melashvili of National Forum told few thousand protesters outside the Parliament on behalf of the opposition leaders that they would launch campaign in the provinces from April 21. He said supporters would be mobilized in Batumi, Poti, Zugdidi, Ozurgeti, Senaki, Samtredia, Kutaisi, Gori, Mtskheta, Telavi, Gurjaani and Sagarejo from where convoys with supporters would arrive in the capital city to join the rallies in Tbilisi.

“Since Saakashvili has failed to hear that Tbilisites do not want him to stay on his post, we will make him understand that entire Georgia does not want him to be a president,” Melashvili said.

Levan Gachechiladze, an individual opposition politician and one of key figures of the ongoing rallies, said the opposition would launch mobilization of supporters throughout the country in order “to strike final chord.”

“We will move towards more radicalism,” Gachechiladze said.

He also told protesters that from next week, his brother, singer and activist Giorgi Gachechiladze, who is in a self-imposed ‘imprisonment’ in ‘a cell’ packed with TV cameras, would briefly join the rally. Giorgi Gachechiladze, with nickname Ucnobi, has turned in to one of the leading figures behind the rallies with his reality TV show Cell No. 5 is viewed as an important tool for anti-Saakashvili campaign; he launched the show in late January on Tbilisi-based Maestro TV and vowed he would not leave ‘cell’ unless President Saakashvili resigned.

Gubaz Sanikidze of National Forum told the protesters that from the next week the opposition would launch “last phase of dismantling of the Saakashvili’s regime” with “aggressive and dynamic actions.”

“The authorities must see how the furious and just Georgia looks like,” he added.

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