Oppositional Eight to Leave Negotiation Table

Sopo Getsadze

The Oppositional Eight introduced the causes that prompted them to stop the dialogue with the Georgian government to Georgian Academy and NGOs. The opposition has been negotiating with the government regarding the issue of changing election environment for five months. As the Oppositional Eight explains, the dialogue has stopped due to the government’s superficial attitude.

As Mamuka Katsitadze, member of New Rights Party states to Human Rights Center, after five months of negotiations, the Georgian government did not wish to continue the dialogue: “Government applied various tricks – postponing meetings, protracting process, leaving questions unanswered… We will gain no outcome this way.”

At this phase the Oppositional Eight offers the government to create the lists of voters according to the biometrical data in order to develop the election environment and change the election system so that the participant political parties may receive the Parliament mandate according to the percentage gained in the elections.

Davit Gamkrelidze, leader of New Rights Party states that the public unification is the necessary precondition for overcoming the crisis: “Our goal is to introduce the situation to more voters. Everybody sees that the government is impregnable. If the public activism is strong, the government may change everything in a day. The Oppositional Eight will not disband. We are continuing the meetings in the different regions of Georgia. The active involvement of society and the support of well-known people who can form the public opinion are essential.”

The Oppositional Eight excludes the possibility of changing government by means of revolution. “We are assured that the elections have no alternative. The revolution is unacceptable for us. It endangers the state organization in the first place,” – notes Mamuka Katsitadze.

The representative of the NGO Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights Nana Kakabadze pessimistically evaluates this attitude of opposition. She thinks that a different force is needed for changing the existing political climate: “No alternative force exists that could replace the current government. The people and opposition could not manage to do so, the ones who could, came in power. As I see it, there are both the supporters of revolution, as well as the supporters of election in the opposition. But in this situation, both of these ways of changing government are unbeneficial. Both of them are advantageous for Saakashvili. Some oppositionists think that the increase of number of offices and members means progress. But none of them have a guiding force. If the number of supporters for change of government by means of the elections increases, it will confirm their understanding that the revolution brings no change.”

The Oppositional Eight received recommendations from the NGOs: the joint coordination of the Eight and more public involvement.

The Oppositional Eights currently unties the following political parties: Conservators, Republicans, People’s Party, Christian-Democrats, National Forum, Free Democrats, New Rights Party and Georgia’s Way.