It is “an illusion” to think that President Saakashvili will foster creation of genuinely free and fair electoral environment and the only way left for change of the government is a peaceful revolution, Erosi Kitsmarishvili, one of the leaders of the opposition Georgian Party, said on May 3.

“The situation has reached the point when it requires to be discharged and this discharge should happen this year,” Kitsmarishvili, co-founder and political secretary of the Georgian Party, said.

Speaking in Tbilisi-based Kavkasia TV’s talk show, Barrier, Kitsmarishvili said that there “are fewer and fewer people in the society who have an illusion that Saakashvili may give up something through elections.”

“The Georgian Party, which has completed building of its party infrastructure in April, will demonstrate in the nearest future such scales of activities, which will be enough to return hope back to the society that the change is possible,” he said.

“We’ve got everything ready for putting an end to the Saakashvili’s regime this year… I will quit the politics if we fail to achieve a result this year; I will have no right to ever speak as a politician; I am putting my political career [at stake].”
 
“We are a Molotov cocktail, consisting of exactly those components, which trigger a charge capable to change this regime,” said Kitsmarishvili, who is President Saakashvili’s former ally and Georgia’s ex-ambassador to Russia.

He said that those opposition parties, which were involved in the electoral reform talks with the ruling party hoping that the authorities would agree on creation of genuinely free and fair electoral environment, “are wasting time.” He also said that Saakashvili was benefiting from this process by creating an illusion of a democratic process.

He said, that holding of parliamentary election in autumn, 2012 as envisaged currently by the law, was “unconstitutional”, because that would mean extending term in office of the sitting Parliament, which was elected for a four-year term in May, 2008. He, however, said holding of free and fair elections was not realistic under the current authorities and “only radicalization is a guarantee for achieving Saakashvili’s resignation.”
 
“Unfortunately there is only one option left - we should at first get rid of this regime and then hold elections,” Kitsmarishvili said.

The Georgian Party’s position is very much similar to the one of Nino Burjanadze, the leader of Democratic Movement-United Georgia, and Burjanadze-backed movement People’s Assembly. The latter has announced about the plan to launch protest rallies from May 21. However, personal rivalry and confrontation between Burjanadze and some of the leaders of the Georgian Party made it so far impossible for them to cooperate.