TBILISI - Tens of thousands of Georgians rallied in central Tbilisi on May 27 in support of an opposition coalition led by billionaire politician Bidzina Ivanishvili, who has promised to unseat the country's ruling party in an October election.
Men and women gathered in Tbilisi’s central Freedom Square, holding Georgian flags and dressed in blue, the colour of the populist bloc Georgian Dream that seeks to beat President Mikheil Saakashvili’s ruling United National Movement party.
"I promise you real politics and real steps. We won’t promise you the impossible but we will try to do everything that is possible," said Ivanishvili, whose wealth has been estimated by Forbes magazine at $6.4 billion.
Georgian Dream unites several opposition parties that have taken aim at the popular president, who has ruled since the 2003 ‘rose’ revolution, and his ruling party.
The country’s fractured opposition has fed off the desire of many Georgians to improve Russian ties which plummeted after a 2008 war between the two countries.
They accuse Saakashvili of curbing freedoms and leading Georgia into the war in which Georgian forces were routed in five days. Moscow went on to recognise Georgian breakaway regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.
Rally on May 27 was the largest since a group of opposition politicians called people into the streets in 2009.
Saakashvili has denounced Ivanishvili as a Kremlin stooge. The tycoon has responded by vowing to sell all his holdings in Russia.
According to recent polls conducted by western institutes and companies, Georgian Dream lags the ruling United National Movement by around 20 percentage points.
Ivanishvili is currently barred from running for office himself after Georgia’s government last year stripped him of his Georgian citizenship because he also held French and Russian citizenship.
But Ivanishvili has given up his Russian passport and said he would renounce his ties to France after obtaining a Georgian passport.
Parliament is making amendments to give any European Union citizen who spends at least five years in Georgia the right to seek election – which would allow Ivanishvili to run.
Ivanishvili’s status has not affected Georgian Dream’s ability to field candidates for elections.
