TBILISI, DFWatch — President Mikheil Saakashvili says he is ready to cooperate with the governing Georgian Dream and its leader and has proposed a plan of cooperation.

The invitation came during Saakashvili’s New Year’s speech Monday night. He focused on cooperation and the importance of bringing an end to the cursing of opponents.

But in this period of so-called cohabitation, the president is more negative towards the new government. His congratulation speech was also negative towards Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili and expressed concern that the new government is destroying all that he has accomplished.

The president said that the new government is only strengthening its own political positions instead of fighting to improve people’s standard of living and fulfilling election promises, as well as destroying opponents and political opposition.

He then claimed that Georgia’s relations with its western allies and strategic partners have worsened, and that the level of crime has gone up. “I will say directly that irresponsible decisions made by the new ruling party endangers the security of our citizens, our streets and districts; our country’s security is in danger.”

The president also thinks that investors will day by day lose trust towards the Georgian economy, while Georgian customers will be more careful while spending money. But he didn’t specify any details or grounds for his statement.

Saakashvili offered the governing party and its leader to cooperate in order to solve the problems and has prepared a five-point plan to do this. The number five has long been the National Movement party’s number on the ballot-paper and has become a symbol for the president and his party: all plans have five points, the number five is in every plan they present.

The first point of the plan is to stop aggressive and assaulting rhetoric towards each other.

“Let’s stop accusing each other being criminals and traitors,” he said adding that they all have supporters and that such a rhetoric will split society.

The next point is to cease the campaign of persecution, detentions, interrogations, ‘pointless revision of the past’ of current opposition and attempts to accuse the former government of being bloody criminals.

The third point is the importance of uniting ‘in order not to allow damage to Georgia’s relations with the West and not interrupt the country’s integration in Euro-Aatlantic structures.’

The president thinks the new government should stop diminishing the achievements of the former government, which are recognized in the world.

“They should stop announcing the achievements of the former government as a lie, because this means cutting off the branch they are sitting on.”

The fourth point is to stop the an attack on local governments.


Ever since the parliamentary election was over, locals in many regions have been demanding to replace the local government because they are members of the National Movement. People want to change the local government, but were afraid to express their protest before, because of a general fear in society. The problem remains today and in some regions the situation has come as far as physical clashes.

The fifth point in the plan is to organize a large international investment conference, which will be chaired by the prime minister and the president, but a precondition is to fulfill the first four points in the proposal.

“Let’s show everyone that we are a civilized nation and a trustful country despite tense political confrontations. Without the trust of investors, our economy cannot develop and our people won’t get employed.”

Ivanishili’s government has not yet responded to this proposal.