koba davitashvili - sergo ratiani - tea sichinava 2013-02-13

Sergo Ratiani (left) and Koba Davitashvili (right) fighting while anchor Tea Sichinava (seated) of the show Arguments on Maestro TV tries to calm them down.

TBILISI, DFWatch–A member of parliament from the opposition and one from the ruling coalition beat each other live on Maestro TV Wednesday evening during a discussion about political violence.

The two briefly clashed together while discussing who was to blame for the street violence outside the National Library on February 8.

Last Friday, a crowd of demonstrators demanding justice for political prisoners had gathered and was blocking the entrance right before President Saakashvili was to hold his annual address to the nation inside.

Violence broke out when a column of activists for the National Movement party, urged on by an agitated Tbilisi Mayor, tried to break through the crowd and enter the library. Many were beat and injured during the ensuing chaos, including women.

Discussing the incident, National Movement parliamentarian Sergo Ratiani, who was present on Friday, blamed the police for inaction, while Koba Davitashvili from the Georgian Dream coalition, reminded him about November 7, 2007, and May 26, 2011, and what he had to go through in those days.

“All the evaluations by Koba are adequate, as long as he doesn’t add some other events from the past, which doesn’t have any connection to this,” Sergo Ratiani started.

“This may be different for you, and maybe you don’t care, but I went through all these things. You tried to kill me three times, and I shouldn’t even talk about it?” Koba Davitashvili asked.


“Why does it matter now?”

“Why does it matter that you were trying to kill me?”

“Why does it matter today, now, at this minute?”

“Then in some other time I will come to you, beat your nose, you all and then I will go and sit in jail.”

Despite attempts by the anchor Tea Sichinava they did not calm down. After calling each other ‘bastard and murderer’, Ratiani got on his feet and broke a glass. Davitashvili approached him, and despite Ratianis warning, Davitashvili grabbed him by his suit, while Ratiani hit him in the face and fell down. Then the guards came and took them out of the studio, while they were both swearing at each other.