Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has been arrested in Georgia, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said on Oct. 1.
Earlier on Oct. 1, Saakashvili posted videos on Facebook saying that he had arrived in the Georgian city of Batumi and that he would soon be arrested. Saakashvili is currently in the Rustavi jail near Tbilisi, Georgian media reported.
Saakashvili, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Executive Committee for Reform, said earlier he had returned to his native Georgia in the run-up to the Oct. 2 local elections in an effort to boost support for the opposition. The most important vote is the election of Tbilisi’s mayor.
“Voting for the (ruling) Georgian Dream party will be a death sentence for Georgia,” Saakashvili wrote on Facebook, calling for holding protests against the Georgian government on Oct. 3.
He added that he would join the protests.
“If the usurpers’ government manages to arrest me sooner, it should further strengthen us. Either way I will not back down and hopefully neither will you.”
Ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili being arrested on Oct. 1. (Imedi TV)
The local elections could trigger an early parliamentary election and a political crisis.
Earlier this year the country’s ruling Georgian Dream party and the opposition reached an agreement according to which early parliamentary elections would be held if the ruling party fails to get at least 43 percent in the local elections.
The 2020 parliamentary election in Georgia also triggered a political crisis, with the opposition saying it was heavily rigged and refusing to recognize its results for months.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba promised that his government will aid Saakashvili, who is a Ukrainian citizen. The Georgian ambassador has been summoned to the ministry on Sept. 2 to discuss the issue.
Criminal charges
Saakashvili left Georgia in 2013 after the Georgian Dream, the main rival of his United National Movement, came to power. Since then, he has been charged and convicted in several criminal cases under the new government. He says they are fabricated and politically motivated.
In 2018, a Georgian court sentenced him to six years in prison in absentia on charges of ordering the beating of opposition lawmaker Valery Gelashvili. The evidence against Saakashvili was based on testimony by two of his political foes.
That same year, a Tbilisi court also sentenced Saakashvili in absentia to three years in prison on abuse of power charges for pardoning four police officers convicted of murder. Saakashvili dismissed the accusations as absurd, arguing that his right to pardon them was not constitutionally limited.
Interpol and Western governments have not recognized the verdicts.
Saakashvili’s track record
Saakashvili, who has gained the reputation of a rebel and rabble-rouser, came to power as a result of the pro-Western Rose Revolution in 2003.
During his presidency from 2004 to 2013, Saakashvili spearheaded law enforcement and economic reforms in Georgia that won him accolades in the West. To supporters, he was a dedicated and effective fighter against corruption. Meanwhile, critics accused Saakashvili of cracking down on the opposition and stifling the freedom of speech.
In 2014, then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko invited the former Georgian president to work his magic in Ukraine. He granted Saakashvili Ukrainian citizenship and appointed him governor of corruption-ridden Odesa Oblast in 2015.
Then, in 2016, he resigned from the governorship, accusing Poroshenko of stalling reforms and supporting corruption in Odesa Oblast.
That was the end of Saakashvili’s alliance with Poroshenko. The two men would become political enemies, and Saakashvili would be one of Poroshenko’s most vocal critics.
In 2017, Poroshenko stripped Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship while he was out of the country. Lawyers have lambasted the move as unlawful, and Saakashvili described it as a political reprisal.
On Sept. 10, 2017, Saakashvili returned to Ukraine by illegally breaking through the Polish border, accompanied by a crowd of supporters. He went on to organize protests against Poroshenko in late 2017 and early 2018.
In response, Ukrainian authorities opened a criminal case against Saakashvili and deported him from Ukraine without a court order in February 2018. Under Ukrainian law, deportation without a court order is illegal.
In 2019 newly-elected President Zelensky restored Saakashvili’s citizenship, and he returned to Ukraine. Zelensky appointed Saakashvili as head of the Executive Council for Reform – an advisory body that coordinates reforms in various sectors – in 2020.
In 2020 the State Investigation Bureau also charged former border guards with unlawfully deporting Saakashvili under Poroshenko.
