Nino Burjanadze: "Saakashvili stuck a pro-Russian label on me"

Interviewed by Georgi Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi, exclusively to VK

“Vestnik Kavkaza” continues its series of interviews with candidates for the presidency of Georgia. This time, former Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze spoke about her program and why she is considered a "pro-Russian politician”.


- Nino Anzorovna, during last year's parliamentary elections, you actively supported Bidzina Ivanishvili’s "Georgian Dream" and even refused to participate in the elections so as not to takes votes from the favorite. Why have you joined the fight for the presidency and not supported the candidate of the ruling coalition, Georgi Margvelashvili?


- For Georgia, it is important that all power is not concentrated in the hands of one politician or one political force. I understand that for a person living in a normal democratic country it is difficult to understand this statement. Democracy means that if the party or coalition wins the election, it must accumulate all the power provided by the Constitution. But in contrast to more established democracies, where there are strong state institutions (an independent judiciary, parliament, and so on) Georgia faces serious challenges in terms of becoming a true democracy. We have repeatedly learned in the hard way what the concentration of power in one hand means – the country immediately begins to move not towards democracy but towards autocracy.

- What are your priorities regarding foreign and domestic policy?

- With regard to foreign policy, I consider a large-scale dialogue with Russia. Now there is progress, for example in the trade and economic sphere, but the thaw will be again replaced by frost, and "Borjomi" will again smell of sulfur, if we do not begin a serious dialogue and reach strategic agreements with Moscow.

Regarding domestic policy, here we consider a priority the establishment of justice. The basic rights of thousands of citizens during the reign of Saakashvili were infringed. Thousands were convicted illegally. If anyone doubts the truth of this assertion (now I have the TV switched on, and I hear the Secretary General of NATO, Mr. Rasmussen, again praising Saakashvili), he may call the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and ask, "How many cases on the abuse of human rights in Georgia are considered? How many times has the Georgian state lost to its own citizens? "

This is a clear indication of how widespread human rights violations were in our country. Just the statistics of the international Court of Human Rights can show the real face of the previous regime. Therefore, investigation of crimes committed by Saakashvili and his minions I think is an overriding task. It is important that the rule of law will reign in the country. Of course, we have developments in economic policy to stimulate investment, create jobs, and so on. Now a huge part of the population is unemployed. So, a lot of social issues should be addressed.

- According to the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Ilia II, during a recent meeting in Moscow, President Putin promised him to consider the return of Georgian refugees to Abkhazia. Is it real?

- I absolutely rule out that Vladimir Putin could give empty promises to Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia. This is a man who knows how to keep his word. Nobody forced the president of Russia to make such a promise. Once it is said, so there are some opportunities. I am sure that these words were said not just without any reason. I have personally heard from Vladimir Putin important considerations on improving Russian-Georgian relations, as well as relations between Georgia and Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It is a very difficult way, but it is the way to break the deadlock, and it does exist. We just have to take this path.

- Unlike previous elections, you are not called "an agent of the Kremlin." How do you assess the course of the election campaign?

- Before the last election dozens of activists of the opposition movement were arrested, their property was taken away, and it was forbidden to them to do normal election work. Now the situation is much improved, because I had no sense of fear. We receive a lot of people who are not afraid of being arrested with slipped weapons or drugs, or that their family members will be fired. In my political council of the party "Democratic Movement - United Georgia" there are ten professors. None of them has worked in the past five years because as soon as people began to cooperate with us, they just lost a job.

Now Saakashvili's party colleagues in the regions are pelted with rotten eggs, but for some reason no one remembers that specially trained "force teams" pelted us with stones during meetings with voters. I have addressed lots of times on this subject to the then Minister of Internal Affairs Vano Merabishvili, who is now in jail.

Many people were simply silent as Saakashvili stuck the label of "pro-Russian policy" on me because of my meetings with Putin. Other Georgian politicians seemed to say: "Let the "pro-Russian "Burjanadze be stoned, her husband will be arrested, her party activists will be expelled from work, and a peaceful rally on May 26, 2011 will be cruelly dispersed, but if Burjanadze is labeled as" pro-Russian”, we can keep quiet about it. "

By the way, the attitude of the West towards Saakashvili badly damaged the image of Western democracy in our country. After all, we expected that democracy must be the same for all and double standards should not exist. I definitely do not consider myself a pro-Russian politician. I am a pro-Georgian politician. But even if I were a pro-Russian politician, my rights, too, had to be protected by the same democratic West.