Kitsmarishvili on Ongoing Protests

Erosi Kitsmarishvili, who in a capacity of owner of Rustavi 2 TV played an important role in 2003 Rose Revolution, said the opposition’s ongoing protest has been a success so far, but now it was time to show supporters “concrete results.”

Kitsmarishvili, a former close ally of President Saakashvili and ex-ambassador to Russia, said the opposition should show “flexibility” and should not be “fixated” on a sole demand of Saakashvili’s resignation.

He said that the opposition should now engage in negotiations with the authorities on concrete issues in order to step-by-step grab those levers on which “the Saakashvili’s system” is based.

“Dismantling of Saakashvili – as a person – is not a goal in itself, but dismantling of Saakashvili’s system is a goal,” Kitsmarishvili said while speaking at the Tbilisi-based Maestro TV late on May 2. “It is possible to achieve it if [the opposition] takes away step-by-step institutions on which the Saakashvili’s system is based; media is among them.”

“Now Saakashvili rating, according to the public opinion surveys commissioned by the authorities, is roughly up to 30% and it is in the condition when he [Saakashvili] controls all the national broadcasters. His rating would have been two or three percent in case of free broadcast media,” Kitsmarishvili, who defected from the Saakashvili’s administration after the August war, said.

He also said that negotiations with the authorities should no way be perceived as “a shameful step” or “capitulation.”

He, however, also warned that the agenda of talks proposed by the authorities involving constitutional changes was “a trap” that the opposition should be aware of.

Kitsmarishvili suggested that any constitutional changes, even those involving significant cut of the presidential powers, would not change the current system if not accompanied by change of media landscape.

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