Voice of America – October 3, 2012 – By James Brooke – James Brooke is VOA Moscow bureau chief, covering Russia and the former USSR. In the run-up to Georgia’s parliamentary vote, supporters of President Mikheil Saakashvili derided their opponent, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, as “a Kremlin project.” Activists for Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition were even chased out of one village […]
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(Nikolaus von Twickel – Moscow Times – October 3, 2012) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev praised the results of Georgia’s parliamentary elections, in which the main opposition coalition defeated the party of President Mikheil Saakashvili. “If these results remain, Georgia’s political landscape will become more diverse. You can only welcome this, because it means that more constructive and responsible forces will […]
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MOSCOW, October 2 (Alexey Eremenko, RIA Novosti) – The Georgian opposition’s likely victory in parliamentary elections yesterday spells no more than token changes in relations with Russia, as anti-Kremlin President Mikheil Saakashvili remains entrenched in power, Russian analysts said on Tuesday. “Relations will improve, because they can’t get any worse,” said Alexander Krylov, Caucasus expert at the Institute of World […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 2 (Interfax) – Russia will respect any choice made by the Georgian people in the October 1 parliamentary election, Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian Parliament, told journalists. “Our country will respect any choice of the Georgian people. It is the Georgian people’s right to elect its parliament and the country’s […]
» Read moreBloomberg – bloomberg.com – Helena Bedwell and Henry Meyer – October 2, 2012 Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili’s opposition coalition unexpectedly won the most votes in a parliamentary election yesterday, dealing a blow to U.S.-backed President Mikheil Saakashvili. The president, 44, said his United National Movement would move to opposition after results with 29.1 percent of votes counted showed Ivanishvili’s Georgian […]
» Read moreMoscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Nikolaus von Twickel – October 1, 2012 When Georgia elects a new parliament Monday, the small South Caucasus nation is likely to get the most global attention it’s received since its 2008 war with Russia. The vote has been labeled historic because the parliament will elect a prime minister who, thanks to a 2010 constitutional […]
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By Helena Bedwell and Henry Meyer – Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – September 28, 2012 Public outcry over the rape and beating of prisoners in a Georgian prison is threatening the nine-year rule of U.S. ally President Mikheil Saakashvili in Oct. 1 parliamentary elections. While Saakashvili’s ruling party held a lead of more than 20 percentage points in a poll conducted […]
» Read more(Business New Europe – Molly Corso in Tbilisi – September 21, 2012) Reeling from graphic evidence of widespread prisoner abuse just 10 days before the parliamentary elections, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and his party are bracing themselves for a major fight to stay in power. The scandal broke on September 18 after a series of violently explicit videos showing prisoners […]
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