TBILISI: Georgia’s prime minister warned against unrest at next week’s legislative elections after a scandal over jail torture sparked protests against the administration of President Mikheil Saakashvili.
“Now the main task for our country is to conduct free and fair elections. However, no free and fair elections will be possible if there is violence,” Prime Minister Vano Merabishvili said in an interview. Videos broadcast last week showing the rape and beating of male prisoners have sparked protests.
The scandal has damaged the ruling party as it faces a strong challenge at Monday’s polls from an opposition coalition led by a billionaire tycoon. “I will personally ensure the eradication of torture and acts against human dignity in the penitentiary system,” promised Merabishvili.
“The government will spare no financial and human resources to ensure that nobody ever doubts that the inmates’ safety and rights are secured,” he said.
Merabishvili used to be the powerful but publicity-shy interior minister whose widely praised reforms ended police bribe-taking, jailed gangsters and cut petty crime.
His opposition critics however, fear and despise him after violent crackdowns on protests in 2011 and 2007 and the murder of a young banker by interior ministry officials in 2006 during his time in charge of the police. Since becoming prime minister in July however, he has stepped out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
If the ruling party wins the elections, he could become Georgia’s top politician after constitutional changes boost the prime minister’s role in 2013 when Saakashvili’s two-term rule ends.
Merabishvili alleged that if the opposition led by tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili won office, Georgia could return to its chaotic past and even lose its independence.
“I think there are three main values which are fundamental: that Georgia will never be a criminal country, that Georgia will never return to corruption, and that Georgia will be independent,” he said.
“But for some of (the opposition), these principles are not their fundamental values.”
AFP
