Salome Zourabichvili, a leader of opposition Georgia’s Way party, said she was ready to accept President Saakashvili’s offer and take a post of deputy interior minister.
“I am ready to go and become Vano Merabishvili’s first deputy and investigate everything from within the ministry,” she said in the Imedi TV’s program on June 15. “I accept that challenge. I will be there [in the Interior Ministry] at 9am tomorrow and let’s see what we will do. But this should not be one more PR action. I want to have full rights of the first deputy minister to start investigations and I will start it.”
Later on the same day Zourabichvili told a daily protest rally outside the Parliament that she decided to accept the President Saakashvili’s offer proposed to the opposition on June 9. She also said that she had taken this decision unilaterally without prior consulting with other opposition leaders. “I hope they will support me in this decision,” she said.
Zviad Dzidziguri, co-leader of Conservative Party, said that Zourabichvili’s proposal would be a test for the authorities. “But I am sure that Mr. Zourabichvili won’t be able to take this post and Saakashvili’s lie will be demonstrated once again,” he said.
Responding to Zourabichvili’s remarks, President Saakashvili said while meeting with lawmakers from the ruling party: “Today one of the radical opposition figures said that she is ready to become the deputy interior minister and although some of our employees are a bit shocked with this, I would support this idea with pleasure.”
“We should involve them [opposition] in the political processes as much as possible. When we offered them posts in law enforcement agencies and in other places, we did not do it because we wanted to charm them with various posts, although it may be a motivation of a great part of them. It is quite natural – you want to make career and you may also want an office. But we did it because nobody will be able to enter from the back door. Georgia will hold elections when they are scheduled,” Saakashvili added.
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