Editor TLN
The National Movement of ex-president Saakashvili elects its new president. If Georgij Mumladze is elected, he promises a tough policy against the pro-Russian Georgian Dream currently in power. Saakashvili, in prison and ill, stands on the sidelines. For the ruling leader, the Movement has come to an end.
Moscow () – On the eve of the congress – called early – to elect a new president, the main opposition force in Georgia, the National Movement founded by former president Mikhail Saakašvili, is at a crossroads. Some of its members would like to operate mainly in the parliamentary arena, to replace the Georgian Dream in the country’s government, while others prefer the path of hard opposition outside the palaces of power.
One of the Movement’s leadership hopefuls, Georgij Mumladze, has openly promised that, if elected, he would turn the group into “the vanguard of street protests, rather than sitting around heating seats in Parliament.” To give more strength to his appeal, for several days Mumladze has been going with dozens of his supporters to the downtown prospect of Rustaveli to launch the electoral campaign. In this regard, he calls on the current party leader, Nika Melia, to immediately step down from his position and create space for internal confrontation.
The radical wing of the Movement accuses Melia and her circle “of having abandoned Saakashvili in jail, to let him die as a prisoner of Putin.” Mumladze assured that, in case of being elected, “our only ideology will be patriotism, and certainly not only within the walls of the party or the government.” With revolutionary spirit, the leader of the protests in the streets reiterated: “We are concerned about this pro-Russian regime that penetrates everywhere, orchestrated by Bidzina Ivanišvili [el fundador del Sueño Georgiano] and his gang.”
Before jumping into the fray a couple of years ago, Mumladze was a well-known researcher at the Center for Constitutional Studies at “Ilia” State University, criticizing both the majority bloc and the opposition for their “constitutional populism.” He later joined the “Platform 2020” of civic activism to found his own political movement “For Georgia”, which joined the National Movement in support of Saakašvili.
Despite not even being a party member, Mumladze is now up against outgoing President Melia and centrist Georgij Čaladze, director of the National Genetics Laboratory. Čaladze is a personal friend of Saakašvili’s mother, Gyuli Alasania, with whom he often travels abroad to get support from international partners.
According to the secretary of the political committee of the Movement, Koba Nakopija, this “wild struggle” within the party does not please the former president, who is in the prison hospital suffering from various serious illnesses. As he explains, “Saakašvili does not want to get involved, and he thinks that this is not the time to divide in this way… all our energies must be devoted to something else, we must overthrow the regime in power, and not stir up the National Movement.”
Meliá agreed with the founder, with whom there have been tensions in the past. However, his decision to resign as president and the schedule of the internal consultation are not clear, and in the meantime he is in Brussels seeking European support for the opposition’s anti-Russian and anti-oligarchic line.
The exponents of the Georgian Dream majority predict the “exhaustion of the National Movement”, as President Iraklij Kobakhidze has said in recent days, because “it is the logical result of their political system”.
Culture Minister Teja Tsulukiani also stated that “their party has been without a backbone for years – former Prime Minister Vano Merabišvili was -; they have no real leader and founder Saakašvili has been found guilty of various crimes. Meanwhile , his mastermind, former Justice Minister Zurab Adejšvili, is abroad… we will soon see his end.” Certainly the opposition crisis is not helping the country to reach a balance, and to find a way to be welcomed in Europe, as the majority of Georgians want.
