Major political parties have said that they would suspend their election campaign for two days on the four-year anniversary of the August war with Russia.

The initiative was first voiced by the ruling United National Movement (UNM) party on Monday.

“We believe that Georgia’s freedom and territorial integrity is an issue on which all the political forces should be unanimous; so the United national Movement has decided to suspend campaign for next two days, on August 7 and August 8,” said Vice-Speaker of Parliament and UNM’s secretary general Mikheil Machavariani.

“We call on our opponents to refrain from campaigning and to jointly pay our respect to those who have sacrificed their lives to our homeland,” he said, adding that the initiative would involve suspending campaign meetings and airing political TV ads.

Georgian Dream, led by Bidzina Ivanishvili, and some other parties, has joined the initiative.

“We join this initiative and we will suspend campaign; we think that this is a right initiative,” Maia Panjikidze, a spokesperson for the Georgian Dream coalition, told news agency InterPressNews.

Meanwhile, President Saakashvili ordered on Monday the national flags on public buildings flown at half-staff on August 7-8 in honor of the victims of the war with Russia.