As Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said on Friday, Saakashvili was arrested and taken to prison. Despite an arrest warrant for abuse of power, the ex-head of state had returned to Georgia from Ukraine shortly before the local elections and had called for the election of the opposition party he had founded and for protests.
Garibashvili said on Georgian television on Friday evening: “I want to inform the population that the wanted third president of Georgia has been arrested.” Garibashvili did not initially name a place.
Until Saakashvili’s arrest was announced, it had been decided where the ex-president was. In the morning he had announced to the online service Facebook that he was in the coastal town of Batumi on the Black Sea. The Ministry of the Interior and the ruling Georgian Dream party had denied his entry.
“I risked my life and my freedom to come back,” the ex-head of state had declared. “I’m back in Georgia after eight years,” Saakashvili wrote on Facebook Friday morning. “
In his video message, Saakashvili called for participation in the local elections over the weekend and for support for the opposition party, United National Movement (UNM), which he founded. The elections are seen as a test for the ruling party and are closely followed inside and outside the country. Observers expect this to provide information on the state of democracy in the Caucasus republic.
On Sunday, the former head of state, who still has a large following in Georgia, called for protests in the capital Tbilisi. “Let’s come to Tbilisi from all over Georgia early in the morning on October 3rd to protect the election results,” he said. Should he be arrested beforehand, “that will only strengthen us”.
The ex-president originally wanted to land in Tbilisi on Saturday evening. After the announcement, the authorities threatened to arrest Saakashvili. President Salome Zurabishvili warned of new unrest on Friday and called on her compatriots to exercise restraint.
In the evening, the authorities published a video that showed Saakashvili being transferred to a detention center. The politician, who is a citizen of Ukraine, laughed. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi was “concerned about the news and the tone of the statements” from Tbilisi, as his spokesman wrote on Facebook. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kiev called the Georgian ambassador for a meeting.
Saakashvili was President of Georgia from 2004 to 2013 after the bloodless rose revolution he led. During this time he implemented far-reaching economic reforms, but also launched a devastating short war with Russia and developed increasingly autocratic features. His Georgian citizenship was revoked in 2015 for alleged abuse of power, and the judiciary wrote him up for a search. He last lived in Ukraine. There President Zelenskyi had appointed him head of the Executive Committee for Reforms. That had caused considerable resentment in Georgia.
Georgia has been in a serious crisis since the parliamentary elections last October. The ruling Georgian Dream party had won a narrow victory at the time. The opposition did not recognize the election victory and raised charges of fraud.
