You're reading: Georgian premier Ivanishvili vague on whether he will step down as promised

TBILISI - Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili did not answer clearly in a Tuesday interview with Imedi television whether he would keep his earlier promise to step down within the next one or two years.

“This is not what counts most. I will always be with my people as
long as I have enough strength, and I’ll be where it’s the most
difficult. I don’t want any speculation on this. By the way, I jokingly
told [President Mikheil] Saakashvili at our meeting yesterday that he
would go in October and I would follow him, but he can’t believe this,”
Ivanishvili said.

Previous Georgian presidents, Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Eduard
Shevardnadze, were deposed, and so “it is unacceptable to continue this
way in relation to Saakashvili,” Ivanishvili said.

“Quite a significant part of society has accumulated a lot of
aggression in relation to third President Saakashvili, but we should
bridle this aggression, because it’s we who elected him, and therefore
we should let him go without any violence so as to save the country’s
face,” he said.