Opposition Leaders Criticize CoE Chief Remarks

Some opposition leaders have called on Council of Europe (CoE) Secretary General, Terry Davis, to take a closer look on the political situation in Georgia, when making statements on the matter.

Speaking at a news conference in Strasbourg on a sideline of CoE Parliamentary Assembly plenary session on April 28, Terry Davis said when asked to comment on situation in Georgia: “I believe that it’s much better to discuss and settle disagreements in the Parliament not in the street. I have been consistent in saying that people who criticize President Saakashvili should do so in the Parliament. I understand that some of the opposition parties, who did sufficiently well in the [May 21, 2008] elections for their candidates to be elected to the Parliament, have refused to take their seats. I find it difficult to understand how that can help the opposition,” Terry Davis said at a news conference in Strasbourg on April 28.

He also said that he himself had spent “a long time in opposition.” “The idea of staying away from Parliament just never occurred to us,” added.

Nino Burjanadze, a former parliamentary speaker and leader of Democratic Movement-United Georgia party, told protesters outside the Parliament on April 28: “I request our foreign friends, including Terry Davis, whom I really respect – he is Georgia’s friend – they’d better look deeper into this situation.”

“I want to ask him what would be the reaction of the population in Britain or the reaction of Mr. Davis if the fact which happened in our country, had happened there, when [Interior Ministry’s senior official] Mr. Sanodze was tossing plastic bags with water from the building of [the Interior Ministry’s General Inspection], when they were shooting with air gun and a person nearly lost his eye because of that and when the Parliamentary Chairman said while commenting on the matter that he [Sanodze] was simply kidding – would people in Britain have tolerated it? Would the population of a democratic state have tolerated it?” Burjanadze said.

“I do not think that Terry Davis, or other Englishmen would have offered to anyone to have a dialogue with Hitler, when the latter was using his paramilitary groups to consolidate his power,” Salome Zourabichvili, the leader of Georgia’s Way party, said.

Eka Beselia of Movement for United Georgia, a party founded by ex-defense minister, Irakli Okruashvili, said at the protest rally outside the Parliament that the authorities had left no other options for the opposition except of the street protest rallies.

“They have cut all the civilized ways for resolving the problems in the parliament or judiciary. When we refused to take seats in the parliament, it was our reaction to those illegalities that took place during the elections,” she added.

Koba Davitashvili, the leader of People’s Party said in a talk show at the Tbilisi-based Kavkasia TV on Tuesday evening: “I want to tell Mr. Davis that being an opposition politician in England and being an opposition politician in Georgia is very different… Here we have to deal not with the authorities, but with the criminal gang, who are now among the government and the leadership.”

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