Has Saakashvili lost his mind? Why did the rally in Kyiv end in shambles?
The rally of supporters of Mikheil Saakashvili that took place in Kyiv yesterday was small in number and did not cause a resonance, like the recent breakthrough of the ex-President of Georgia across the Ukrainian border. Does this mean that Saakashvili has given up? PolitNavigator asked experts monitoring the development of the situation about this.
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Vladimir Kornilov, political scientist:
“As far as I understand, Saakashvili and his supporters are just preparing the main events in Kyiv. Initially, he did not plan to hold rallies there until he had traveled through a number of key regions for himself - primarily Odessa and Dnepropetrovsk, where much larger events were being prepared for him. His goal is not crowded rallies. Its goal: to demonstrate the toothlessness of power in order to undermine the regime. And so far he has achieved this goal.”
Ruslan Bortnik, political scientist:
“The situation around Saakashvili today is an element of trade between Saakashvili and the authorities. That is why the Attorney General said there were no grounds for detention and extradition. That is why the rally did not work out yesterday. By and large, we only saw a briefing for the media. That is why the court hearing in the Saakashvili case has been postponed. There is a behind-the-scenes game going on in which Saakashvili’s future in Ukraine is being decided.”
Sergey Belashko, political scientist:
“Saakashvili can only surprise with exuberant creativity. The action that took place in Kyiv had the only trick - his statement that, allegedly, the party’s “common fund” was kept on the first floor of the Presidential Administration. Everything else was exactly the same as all the other actions carried out by Lyashko, Kaplin, Kiva, Berezyuk, etc.
To break through the border, to say that I will gather 700 people and I meant all of you with all your passports and border guards, I will pass - yes, this is a challenge, this is action, this is cool. Nobody has done this in Ukrainian politics, although there were precedents for the deprivation of citizenship of the same Artemenko, who gave some kind of appeal, he was refused, and he remained to live abroad.
Therefore, Saakashvili needs something that no one has done before. By doing this, he can attract attention, mobilize some kind of media activity, attract new supporters and inspire existing ones, etc.
But the range of such options is quite short. It is difficult to offer something that does not exist and that would emphasize some positive character traits of Saakashvili - that he is a fighter, charismatic, etc.
And with all these dull actions, he simply goes to play on someone else’s field and, naturally, he just stands in line with all these extras, turning into a dull and boring “birch” who bleats something about the “garbage blockade”, about education , medicine, or whatever new topics they have - “getting into medicine.” No one is interested in this. And Saakashvili becomes just one of the sad clowns.”
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