GEORGIAN OFFICIALS have accused opponents of President Mikheil Saakashvili of plotting to violently overthrow the government with the help of Mafia groups following next Monday’s parliamentary election.
Prosecutors said prominent opposition member Giorgi Khaindrava was conspiring with a Georgian organised crime boss in France, and said AC Milan footballer-turned-activist Kakha Kaladze had been secretly recorded holding talks with underworld figures in Georgia.
Both the accused men and their Georgian Dream party dismissed the claims as part of a smear campaign by Mr Saakashvili’s ruling party, which is facing a tough electoral challenge amid widespread public outrage over footage showing brutal abuse of prison inmates.
Prosecutors said documents provided by French investigators showed “a deal has been reached between a representative of the Georgian opposition and gang bosses that are at the head of an international criminal network, aimed at provoking violent acts and destabilisation in Georgia”.
Mr Khaindrava was released after police questioning over his alleged request to Mafia bosses to “supply arms and men for a possible coup in Georgia if the option of an electoral victory cannot be achieved”, officials said.
The allegations chime with Mr Saakashvili’s push to portray Georgian Dream leader Bidzina Ivanishvili as a suspicious character with close links to shadowy foreign groups. The billionaire holds French citizenship and made his fortune in Russia. Critics call him a Kremlin stooge who, if victorious on Monday, would restore Russian influence over Georgia.
Paris said it was “surprised” Georgia had revealed the confidential investigative details.
“In a sensitive pre-election context further degraded by the revelations of torture in Georgian jails, any exploitation of a pending judicial case could affect the proper conduct of the elections,” said French foreign ministry spokesman Vincent Floreani.
The EU and US have called for a fair and peaceful ballot, but mud-slinging between the ruling party and Georgian Dream is intensifying. The opposition claims dozens of its activists were wrongly arrested in recent days and that beatings and intimidation by police and government supporters continues.
Officials accuse Georgian Dream activists of violent conduct and say all arrests made were justified.
Mr Saakashvili told the UN on Tuesday that Georgia was punishing those responsible for prison abuse – the kind of thing that in Russia “happens almost every day . . . and nobody gives a damn there about it”.
He said Georgia’s reforms were an example to less democratic ex-Soviet states such as Russia, which defeated Tbilisi’s forces in a five-day war in 2008.
“That’s why they want Georgia off the map,” Mr Saakashvili said of Russia’s leaders, lambasting them for conducting major military exercises near Georgia’s border on the eve of the election.