Saakashvili Comments on Protests

President Saakashvili said that there was “no surprise” that one part of people in Georgia were protesting. 

Speaking at a meeting with a group of pupils in one of the Tbilisi’s schools, Saakashvili said that 700,000 voters cast their ballot for an opposition presidential candidate, Levan Gachechiladze, in the 2008 early presidential elections. He said that part of those people were now protesting “because they are not satisfied that their favorite candidate failed to win.”

He was speaking as tens of thousands of people were rallying in a national stadium in Tbilisi.

“I also know well that people lives in hardship,” Saakashvili continued. “I know very well that a great part of the society lives in poverty. But for past five years number of people living below the poverty level has decreased. Those, who live below the poverty level, had nothing previously and now they have free medical insurance, they have certain privileges on social services, but of course, it is not enough.”

“Of course, one part of these people, a great part of them are not satisfied – one cannot be satisfied, when you are poor and therefore one part of the society is protesting.”

“On the other hand, we should remember that we dismissed over 50 thousand people past five years from the state structures – police, prosecutor’s office, customs office, local governance, mayor’s office, etc. Should we have dismissed these people? I am sure even today that this system needed to be changed. Unfortunately, it was an unfair system and radical moves were needed to demolish it,” Saakashvili said.

“Of course, we have not arrested or expelled these people; they still live in Tbilisi and of course, these people cannot be satisfied because they were dismissed. But the key task of democracy is to listen to any groups and make a final decision based on common public interests, so that not a single group manages to impose his opinions on the entire society. Everybody’s opinions should be taken into consideration, but finally these opinions should be combined, the interests of all groups should be combined, the interests of all people should be combined and it should be taken into consideration,” he added.

In separate remarks on the same matter made at a groundbreaking ceremony for construction of air traffic control tower in Black Sea town of Batumi later on May 26, Saakashvili: “I want to salute those people, who used May 26 for expressing their anger and protest in the center of Tbilisi, because I understand the hardship of these people and I understand the motivation of their protest.”

“Of course, I may not agree with some political leaders and the behavior of some of them may be absolutely unacceptable, but everybody should know one thing – we may not agree with each other in political views but we all love our country. We all, except for some betrayers, want Georgia to stand on its feet and Georgia to become united and successful.”

Earlier on May 26, as part of official events marking the Independence Day, President Saakashvili was at a cemetery in the suburb of Tbilisi, where some of Georgian soldiers, fallen in the August war, are buried.

“We all, who love our motherland, we all are ready to continue the struggle and to even sacrifice ourselves if needed; but we all want to live unless the last foreign occupant, last invader, last enemy leaves Georgia’s land once and forever. Last year Georgia defended its independence and showed to the entire world that we are the gates of freedom of entire region,” Saakashvili said.

He also said that after de-occupation of the Georgian territories, reintegration of Abkhazians and South Ossetians into the Georgian state would take place.

“I want them to know and they know that we have never had anything against them,” Saakashvili said and added that “occupying forces are in fact swallowing Abkhazians.”

“With one hand Georgia continues its struggle for full liberation and with the other we are building our country, because we will respect our fallen heroes most of all by building a successful, democratic, European Georgia. By doing so we will also astonish our enemies, who thought that our destruction was irreversible… We will accomplish this deed to build a successful and united Georgia and this will be the major response to aggression, to any invasion and any attempts to destroy us.”

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