You're reading: Opposition says Georgia vote a choice between ‘good and evil’

 TBILISI, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Voters in Georgia face a stark choice between "good and evil" in parliamentary elections on Oct. 1, said opposition leader Bidzina Ivanishvili on Saturday, following days of protests over state prison brutality that have left the ruling party reeling.

“We should make a choice between good and evil on
October 1,” Bidzina Ivanishvili, told a crowd in Zugdidi in western
Georgia.

“We promise to come to power and to restore
justice,” said the billionaire leader of the “Georgian Dream”
opposition coalition.

Thousands of people gathered at Zugdidi’s central square to
show their support for the opposition, which poses a serious challenge to
President Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement party’s chances of
winning the upcoming vote.

Protests were sparked in Georgia this week after footage
showing the torture and rape of inmates in the capital’s main prison was aired
by two television channels supportive of the opposition.

Hours after the release of the prison video, Saakashvili promised
to punish those responsible and seek radical reforms of the jail system, asking
policemen to take over prison guard duties while reforms were being worked out.

The country’s interior minister tendered his resignation
over the scandal and the prisons minister also stepped down.

 

IMPACT

Surveys conducted before the scandal erupted showed
Saakashvili’s party some 20 points ahead of Georgian Dream, a platform set up
by Ivanishvili.

Saakashvili’s government says the video, which shows guards
beating, punching and humiliating prisoners, as well as inmates being raped
with objects, was recorded by guards who were bribed by “politically
motivated persons”.

The head of the Tbilisi prison, his two deputies and several
prison guards were arrested, while international organisations and human rights
groups called for a prompt investigation.

Ivanishvili, his fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at
$6.4 billion, owns one of the broadcasters that showed the film.

A once-reclusive tycoon whose wealth equals nearly half
Georgia’s economic output, Ivanishvili launched his political movement last
year and has campaigned on calls for Saakashvili to resign.

Saakashvili became the West’s political darling when he rose
to power after the bloodless “Rose Revolution” that toppled Eduard
Shevardnadze, a former Soviet foreign minister, in 2003.

But opponents have accused him of curbing political freedoms
and criticised him for leading Georgia – a country of 4.7 million people on a
transit route for oil and gas supplies across the volatile Caucasus region –
into a brief but disastrous war with Russia in August 2008.