President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, while speaking on Georgian TV late on New Year’s Eve, proposed to the new government headed by Bidzina Ivanishvili a five-point agenda that he claimed would help reverse the “downward spiral” toward “chaos” Saakashvili said has been precipitated by what he termed the new leadership’s vindictive and destructive actions.
As reported, Ivanishvili has not yet responded to those proposals, but two respected members of his Georgian Dream (KO) coalition’s parliament faction have cast doubt on the president’s sincerity, as has a former close associate of ex-President Eduard Shevardnadze.
Saakashvili’s five proposals were as follows:
-To refrain from “aggressive and insulting rhetoric,” “portraying each other as criminals and traitors,” and “hate speech,” so as not to “split the society apart.”
-To end what he termed “the repressive campaign of persecution, arrests, questionings of the opposition, as well as the senseless revision of the past and witch hunt,” and the “persecution of the free media.”
– Not to undermine Georgia’s relations with the West or hinder its integration into Euro-Atlantic structures.
-To stop attacks on local councils, by which Saakashvili may have meant efforts to investigate suspected attempts by local councils to rig the outcome of the October 1 parliamentary election in favor of Saakashvili’s United National Movement (ENM).
-To convene an international conference, to be chaired jointly by himself and Ivanishvili, with the aim of “restoring” the confidence of both potential local and international investors.
