Georgia: President Offers to Hold Early Election to Defuse Crisis, Opposition Leaders Missing

In a surprise televised address on the evening of November 8, Saakashvili stated that he wanted to give the opposition the chance to become "the people's choice" by holding presidential elections on January 5, 2008. A referendum, he proposed, should determine the date of parliamentary elections, one of the main sources of dispute between the government and opposition. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

A constitutional amendment passed earlier this year allows for simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections, with the date to be named by the president. One opposition leader expressed cautious optimism in response to the proposal, although heavily tempered by criticism of the president after the violence of November 7.

"Yesterday we saw President Saakashvili commit political suicide," said Tinatin Khidasheli, one of the leaders of the Republican Party, the central member of the ten-party opposition coalition that staged the November 2-7 demonstrations in Tbilisi. "This is the result of that political suicide."

The opposition, Khidasheli said, will announce a presidential candidate on November 22, the fourth anniversary of the Rose Revolution that brought President Saakashvili to power. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. "On January 5, Georgia will have