Mikhail Saakashvili, the newly elected president of Georgia, faced his first serious challenge yesterday when the separatist western region of Ajaria declared a state of emergency claiming "certain forces" were trying to overthrow its regime. The Ajarian leader, Aslan Abashidze, asked his parliament on Wednesday night to reintroduce the state of emergency that had given his police forces heightened powers after last year's "rose revolution" overthrew the national government. The lifting of the order for last weekend's presidential elections was taken as a sign that the radical leader was backing down in his confrontation with Tbilisi. But the Ajarian administration said yesterday: "Destructive forces, including those inside the autonomous republic, are posing a threat to Ajaria's constitution and borders."
| Sounds like he's afraid he's going to lose exclusive control of his fiefdom... |
Police arrested five members this week of the radical Kmara student group, one of the main activists in the peaceful overthrow of Georgia's former president Eduard Shevardnadze. They had distributed leaflets, police said, with the slogan: "Down with Abashidze's dictatorship!" Police also found illegal weapons, drugs and dollars, allegedly linked to relatives of a Kmara member.
| Do tell? I'll bet they had a flag that said "Afghanistan," too... |
Tbilisi declared the state of emergency "illegitimate". The Georgian deputy interior minister, Givi Ugulava, said Mr Abashidze had exceeded his authority. "The declaration of a state of emergency is the prerogative of the Georgian president," he said. He said that, after Mr Saakashvili's inauguration on January 25, the new government, which got 96% of the vote in the weekend's election, would clarify "relations between Tbilisi and Batumi [the Ajarian capital] in a most principled way". |