Gigi Ugulava, the mayor of Tbilisi and an influential figure within the President Saakashvili’s administration, said the authorities were not even considering calling of early elections as demanded by most of the opposition parities.

Echoing President Saakashvili’s remarks on the matter, Ugulava said that against the background of “economic crisis, when there is no money in the country, money should be spent for people and not for employment of politicians.”

“The authorities neither plan, nor consider calling of early elections,” Ugulava said while speaking in the public TV’s new talk show, Political Week, on January 11. “The next elections are planned for 2010 – the local elections. Elections are expansive luxury and elections can not be held annually; even if the elections are held the same people [reference to opposition parties, which refused to enter the Parliament elected after the May 21 elections] will come out and express protest [about the election results]; so that would be the same old story; it is like a squirrel in a running-wheel cage; we will not insult the society.”