Less than two weeks before the presidential elections, the Georgian government and opposition presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili are embroiled in a fresh finger-pointing scandal over an alleged coup plot and murder attempt.

On December 24, the General Prosecutor's office released two videos that show the head of Patarkatsishvili's election campaign, parliamentarian Valeri Gelbakhiani, discussing the campaign's post-election protest plans with the head of the interior ministry's Special Operations Department, Erekle Kodua. Patarkatsishvili had earlier been accused - but never charged - of attempting to overthrow the government via the November 7 protests in Tbilisi. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive].

In the videos, Gelbakhiani and Kodua, are seen speaking at undisclosed locations on December 18 and 21. Gelbakhiani is heard assuring Kodua that 80,000 people are already prepared to protest. According to Georgian media reports, he also told Kodua that the campaign has the money to bring people to the streets.

Yet despite the allegations, investigators as yet have no plans to arrest Gelbakhiani, General Prosecutor's Office spokeperson Keti Akhalkatsi told EurasiaNet. Officials, she said, are still waiting for more evidence. Gvaramia had stated that he will only be interrogated as a suspect.

Nonetheless, some government representatives are responding as if the case is a done deal. En route to an emergency meeting of the National Security Council on Monday, Council Chairman Kakha Lomaia told Georgian television reporters that the tapes showed "what the opposition's real intentions are." Tbilisi Mayor Givi Ugalava, a close ally of former President Mikheil Saakashvili, termed Patarkatsishvili and campaign manager Gelbakhiani "devils" and stormed that "the country should get rid of this plague."

In a televised statement on the evening of December 24, Acting President Nino Burjanadze stated that an "objective investigation" into the charges would be carried out. While stressing that there is "no need to panic," she referred to the video recordings as giving "a serious basis . . . for us to affirm that there is a serious threat against the state."

Meanwhile, in response to the allegations, Patarkatsishvili has denied ever planning a coup and has accused the government of attempting to assassinate him.

In a December 24 statement read to journalists by parliamentarian Gocha Jojua, who acts as the Patarkatsishvili campaign's de facto spokesperson, the London-based tycoon referred to the tapes as "propaganda" and stated they were proof that former President Mikheil Saakashvili has "exhausted all political resources" to win the January 5 elections.

According to Jojua, the authorities are bent on "neutralizing" what he believes are their two biggest rivals: Patarkatsishvili and United National Opposition Council candidate and parliamentarian Levan Gachechiladze. "The election right now is between Gachechiladze and Patarkatshvili and, therefore, the government wants to [use] any prevocational method...they want to neutralize those two parties that poise the biggest threat," Jojua told EurasiaNet.

Jojua maintains that special operations chief Kodua approached Patarkatsishvili in London "before" December 18 to seek "guarantees" of Kodua's personal safety after the election, assuming a Patarkatsishvili win. Jojua said that the conversations taped on the 18th and 21st were just "continuations" of that London conversation.

Jojua also questioned the location of the meetings; the first, on December 18, in an apparent lounge area or living room; the second, on December 21, in what appears to be a restaurant's private dining room, with an unidentified woman also present. Jojua argues that negotiations about possible coups would not be held in "that format."

"When there are negotiations and the negotiations are being held with a person who controls a repressive power, they will not be held in that format," he said, referring to the seemingly relaxed setting of the filmed meetings.

Neither Kodua nor the interior ministry was available for comment. Gelbakhiani could also not be reached for comment.

The tapes released on Monday followed on the heels of a similarly scandalous charge against the Georgian government. On Sunday, December 23, The Sunday Times published an article asserting that the government hired a Chechen assassin to kill Patarkatsishvili. The article includes excerpts from an alleged conversation between the would-be assassin, identified as Uvais Akhmadov, and a representative of the Georgian interior ministry discuss a potential hit job. (Rustavi-2 television later claimed that the representative was a former ministry employee, Gia Dgebuadze.)

The Sunday Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which also runs Imedi Television and Radio, a private broadcasting company founded by Patarkatsishvili and shut down for over a month following the November 7 disturbances. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive.

A copy of the tape cited in the article is available on The Sunday Times' website, and was aired on Georgian television on Sunday and Monday. The newspaper article does not indicate how the tapes were acquired. Editorial staff of The Sunday Times could not be reached for comment.

Responding to the material, Deputy Prosecutor Nika Gvaramia told Rustavi-2 television on December 23 that he was unable to confirm or to deny the article. "We can give more details only after the tape is examined," he reportedly said.

General Prosecutor Office spokesperson Akhalkatsi, however, denied that there is any link between the publication and Gvaramia's release of the video recordings of Gelbakhiani's alleged "coup" conversation. "These are two separate events," she told EurasiaNet. The prosecutor's office had planned to release the footage against Gelbakhiani on Monday before publication of the Sunday Times article, she continued.

In a December 23 televised briefing, Gvaramia had said that his December 24 press conference would be held "to inform the press about the detail" of a "pattern" noted in Patarkatsishvili's allegations against the government. In late September, former Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili, portrayed by prosecutors as a close ally of Patarkatsishvili, claimed that then President Mikheil Saakashvili had ordered the tycoon's "liquidation."

The new accusations only underscore the heightened tensions that have characterized Georgian politics since the November protest crackdown and Okruashvili's accsuations. Two recent public opinion polls have placed Saakashvili as a forerunner in the race, but with ratings under the 50 percent needed to secure the election in the first round.

Political scientist Alexander Rondeli argues that these latest revelations against Patarkatsishvili will "definitely" help Saakashvili in the race, adding that "many people" will "understand" the gravity of the alleged threat. He shrugged off concerns that the ongoing stream of accusations and counter-accusations will only discourage voters from taking part in the vote.

"[This is] political rivalry," he said. "Rivals do not mean we have to kill each other."