Gachechiladze Meets Saakashvili
Levan Gachechiladze, an opposition politician, who is one of the key figures behind the ongoing protest rallies, is holding a meeting with President Saakashvili.
The meeting, which started at about 9pm, is taking place in the president’s Shavnabada residence outside Tbilisi.
Gachechiladze announced about his plans to accept a proposal for a meeting at a protest rally outside the former headquarters of the Interior Ministry. Several thousands protesters made a live chain around the Interior Ministry’s and General Prosecutor’s buildings to protest against, what they call, “police state” and “political police.”
Gachechiladze told the protesters that the meeting would be held without “prior agreed agenda.”
“I should deliver my opinion about how to overcome the crisis – that is his resignation and he should tell me his opinion,” he said.
He also said that the reaction of his partner opposition parties, who are behind the ongoing protests rallies, on his decision to meet with Saakashvili was “mixed.”
“None of them is radically against of it but the opinion is mixed,” Gachechiladze told Tbilisi-based Maestro TV. “I myself am a bit concerned and disturbed because of negative experience of the past.”
The announcement was also met with mixed reactions by protesters with some of them booing the decision. One protester shouted: “Don’t go alone” at the meeting without other opposition leaders.
“This meeting is necessary,” Gachechiladze told the protesters.
On May 11 President Saakashvili met with four opposition leaders – Levan Gachechiladze, Salome Zourabichvili, Irakli Alasania and Kakha Shartava – who had a joint mandate of all the opposition parties, which are organizers of the ongoing protests, to negotiate with the President. Unlike the May 11 meeting, in today’s talks Gachechiladze will participate in an individual capacity.
Zviad Dzidziguri, leader of opposition Conservative Party, said that the decision about Gachechiladze’s planned meeting with the President was not discussed among the opposition parties.
Davit Gamkrelidze, leader of New Rights Party, part of Alliance for Georgia, said he would not advise Gachechiladze to agree on the meeting in the proposed format – face-to-face talks with Saakashvili without presence of other opposition leaders, “because it is much easer to discredit Levan [Gachechiladze] in that case.”
Gachechiladze also said that he would speak about the details of his meeting with President Saakashvili in the Maestro TV’s talk show, Cell No. 5, which is hosted by his brother, a singer and activist Giorgi Gachechiladze, who has turned into an informal leader of ongoing protests through his popular TV program.
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian)
