TBILISI, October 1. /TASS/: Information that Mikhail Saakashvili, Georgia’s ex-president, is currently in Georgia heats up and disturbs the calm pre-election atmosphere, Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili stated in her written address on Friday.
"There is a spreading of unrest. This is during the time when the country above all needs calm so that tomorrow’s election is open, fair and free. Whether it’s true or false (Saakashvili’s arrival in Georgia - TASS), this very subject disrupts the calm pre-election environment and heats up the atmosphere and the society which is already fatigued," the presidential administration quoted her as saying.
According to the Georgian leader, those who are ramping up the subject of Saakashvili’s arrival are in fact preparing not for the election but for rallies on October 3. "Those who are involved in spreading this subject and exploiting it, it turns out, think neither about the country nor about fair elections but gamble on street rallies on October 3, that is, on destabilization," she noted.
She also stated that the government in this situation should ensure calm and not "laugh it off."
On Friday, Saakashvili wrote on Facebook that he had returned to his homeland eight years after his departure. The Georgian authorities refuted this information stating that he hasn’t even left Ukrainian territory. Earlier, they repeatedly vowed to arrest the former president as soon as he arrives in the country.
Saakashvili served as President of Georgia from January 2004 to November 2013. In 2013, he left the country a few days before the expiration of his presidential term. Following that, four criminal cases were opened against him with verdicts returned on two of them. In January 2018, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced Saakashvili in absentia to three years behind bars for the 2006 murder of Sandro Girgvliani, an employee of the Georgian United Bank. In June 2018, the court sentenced him to six years in prison for the 2005 assault of lawmaker Valery Gelashvili.
