Presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili and his allies are “a plague” and “devils” and the country should “get rid of them,” Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava said on December 24.

He was speaking with reporters before the start of an emergency session of the National Security Council, which was convened shortly before the General Prosecutor’s Office announced that MP Valery Gelbakhiani, the head of the Patarkatsishvili campaign headquarters, was a suspect in a coup plot.

“This is a plague. Our country is being raided by devils - Patarkatsishvili and Gelbakhiani – and the country should get rid of this plague, because this is not a fight against the government, this is a fight against the country. But the state will survive and will respond appropriately,” Ugulava said.

Secretary of the National Security Council Alexander Lomaia told reporters before the NSC session that the public, following the release of a video tape issued by the General Prosecutor’s Office earlier today, had seen “what the real intentions of the opposition” were.