[R-G] Thousands Demand Saakashvili Resignation

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Thousands Demand Saakashvili Resignation:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u4bqAvdMug>

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/world/europe/08georgia.html>
November 8, 2008
Protesters Condemn President of Georgia
By OLESYA VARTANYAN and MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ

TBILISI, Georgia — Thousands of antigovernment demonstrators poured
into the streets of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, on Friday, hoping to
weaken the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili as it strives
to maintain power despite a catastrophic war with Russia and a growing
economic malaise at home.

The large, though generally subdued, demonstration occurred one year
after black-helmeted riot police officers violently quashed opposition
protests in Tbilisi, pelting unarmed civilians with clubs and rubber
bullets, and using tear gas and water cannons to chase the protesters
from the streets.

That event roused accusations domestically and internationally that
the president's promises of democracy and reform, which he made upon
taking power in a bloodless coup in 2003, had fallen short, leaving
Georgia only slightly more democratic than the country's post-Soviet
neighbors, including Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia.

But while Mr. Saakashvili is perhaps still off kilter after last
year's political tumult and the war with Russia in August — which many
see as a humiliation for Georgia that the president may have provoked
— he remains popular and appears still to be very much in control.

At Friday's protest, opposition politicians condemned Mr.
Saakashvili's handling of the war and blamed the president for losing
two separatist Georgian enclaves, South Ossetia, over which the war
was fought, and Abkhazia. Russia has consolidated its control of both
enclaves and now recognizes them as independent states, despite
widespread international disapproval of the move.

Protesting opposition members also repeated accusations of fraud in
presidential and parliamentary elections held this year, and they
called for early elections to be held in the spring.

But the message was equally one of patience, with opposition leaders
apparently using the protest to gauge the political mood just months
after a majority of Georgians rallied to the side of Mr. Saakashvili
in the face of a Russian invasion.

"It is impossible to reach freedom in half an hour, one hour or two
hours," Kakha Kukava, an opposition leader, told the protesters.

Some of the demonstrators were disappointed in calls to wait, saying
they would like Mr. Saakashvili and his team to be removed from power
immediately, lest they provoke renewed fighting with Russia.

"Saakashvili should go right now," said Eka Jipashvili, a protesters.
"We need a new government that will be able to negotiate with Russia
and will not worry us with ideas of new war."

Few analysts, however, think Mr. Saakashvili's immediate removal is
possible, given the fractured state of the opposition. Some central
opposition figures skipped the protest, including Nino Burdzhanadze, a
former speaker of the Parliament and an erstwhile confidant of Mr.
Saakashvili, who broke with the president over the police crackdown
last November.

"I don't think the opposition is going to storm the president's
office, storm Parliament and take over Georgia," said Lincoln
Mitchell, a Georgia expert at Columbia University.

Friday's demonstration appeared to be largely a victory for the
Georgian government, which has been under increasing scrutiny
internally and by backers in Western governments. The government has
said it aspires to follow the democratic principles espoused by Mr.
Saakashvili, but critics say it has receded in practice.

The demonstration, which the government allowed, occurred without
problems, and few police officers were on the streets.

It was muted compared with last year's raucous protests. Back then,
about 500 people were injured, though none fatally, in the police
crackdown, which was the culmination of a month of political turmoil
that had pushed the once enormously popular government of Mr.
Saakashvili to the verge of implosion and that had stained relations
with the president's allies in Europe and the United States.

Yet Mr. Saakashvili survived politically, unexpectedly conceding to
opposition demands and declaring early presidential elections that
temporarily eased internal political tensions and foreign criticism.
He won the elections, though there were accusations of fraud by the
opposition.

In a televised appeal made last month, Mr. Saakashvili said he had
learned painful lessons from last year's police violence and vowed to
prevent a recurrence.

"We have all learned big lessons from Nov. 7," he said. "We have seen
mistakes made by the Georgian authorities."

He added: "Those events demonstrate how important it is for the
government and the president to listen to the people, and how
important it is to maintain dialogue even with minor groups."

Olesya Vartanyan reported from Tbilisi, Georgia, and Michael Schwirtz
from Moscow.

Olesya Vartanyan reported from Tbilisi, and Michael Schwirtz from Moscow.