TBILISI, September 15 – A jailed leader of Georgia’s largest opposition party has accused the country’s most powerful political figures of locking him up to silence dissent, calling his arrest proof that the government fears its own people.
Levan Khabeishvili, a senior figure in the United National Movement (UNM), made the comments in a handwritten letter from prison, later published on his Facebook page, Interpressnews reports. He wrote that Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, and Mamuka Mdinaradze, one of its parliamentary leaders, had taken him “hostage” because he had held up “a huge mirror” to society, showing ordinary Georgians that they were “not alone” and “already victorious.”
Khabeishvili said the upcoming municipal elections on 4 October should be seen as a “day of people’s victory.” He urged supporters not to be discouraged by what he described as pressure on dissenting voices and called on them to stay united.
UNM, once Georgia’s ruling party after the 2003 Rose Revolution, has been under increasing pressure from authorities, who recently moved to strip it of its official ballot number in the October vote after it missed registration deadlines.
