Georgian Dream ruling party supported presidential candidate Salome Zurabishvili said she and her family are being threatened by former servicemen affiliated with the United National Movement party.
Zurabishvili has already addressed the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia and the civil sector to react to open threats on her life, her son and daughter.
She said that her son Teimuraz Gorjestani and daughter Ketevan Gorjestani received messages and audio calls on 9,10 and 11 November.
The messages and calls included verbal abuse and words like these: "I’ll kill you", "I’ll drink your blood" and others. The threats are real as those who left the messages have been identified - they are former soldiers connected with the United National Movement.
"It is very insulting for the state that people who are threatening a female presidential candidate and her family are using the name of the Georgian Armed Forces, of forces which are associated with bravery and honour," Zurabishvili stressed.
"I have already appealed to the Interior Ministry for all necessary steps to be taken to prevent destabilisation," Agenda.ge cited Zurabishvili as saying.
She also called upon the civil sector to react to the violations against her and said that her previous appeal to the civil sector had been ignored.
"I appealed to the civil sector on 11 October first to react to violation of my rights by my opponents. However, the organisations which must protect human rights and take actions against the language of hatred and gender discrimination showed no interest in such incidents against me," she added.
"If they still fail to react timely and effectively, they will share the responsibility regarding my family or the destabilisation in the country together with the initiators of the mess,” Zurabishvili said.
Political scientist Gela Vasadze, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that such threats may be staged by the Georgian Dream as part of the election campaign. "I do not exclude that Salome Zurabishvili could get certain threats - but the question is from whom? There are two options: either from some psychotic, or the sick are those who have come up with such a combination to play it out in the election campaign are mentally ill. It is absolutely clear that any sane person would wonder why the UNM to threaten Zurabishvili, thereby weakening Vashadze's position? Both threatening Zurabishvili, and faking threats are equally silly," he stressed.
"Most of the people I communicate with believe that this is a staged provocation of the Georgian Dream. I admit that an inadequate person could threaten her. But the fact that this opposition decided to scare Salome Zurabishvili like something from science fiction," Gela Vasadze added.
The head of the Institute of Management Strategy, Petre Mamradze, also excluded that the threat was coordinated with the management of the UNM. "It’s very hard to imagine that it came from the very top, because, whatever criminals Saakashvili and his accomplices are, they still understand that any threats will be made public and the investigation will bring no benefit to them. At the same time, I also exclude the option of provocation by the Georgian Dream: it’s hard to imagine that after all the mistakes they made to compromise Saakashvili’s 'Nazis'. It's hard to assume anything rational in this situation," he noted.
"I think that it could be some kind of irrational persons. Someone, for example, hates Saakashvili and did it in order to discredit him even more. It could also be someone who really hates Zurabishvili. But it’s difficult to imagine that these were planned actions of one of the parties," Mamradze concluded.
