Nino Burjanadze, a former parliamentary speaker and leader of Democratic Movement-United Georgia, said on May 25 “active actions” were needed to be taken to show to the authorities that there was a crisis in the country.

She said while speaking at a protest rally outside the Parliament that those actions, which she did not specify, should be started from May 26, when the opposition plans a large-scale protest rally in Tbilisi. 

“Tomorrow we are not planning to simply gather, to sing an anthem [May 26 marks Georgia’s Independence Day] and then to disperse. I am sure and I promise you that I will be actively engaged in this, that we should undertake active actions tomorrow,” Burjanadze said causing protesters’ applauses.

“Yes we should undertake active actions,” she continued, “because the authorities do not hear, they do not want to see that there is a crisis in the country. So we should act more actively and we should show more actively to the authorities that there is the crisis and we should [act] in those venues where it will more disturb the authorities, where it will be specially painful for the authorities; so we will act and act in frames of the constitution and law, but we will act bravely and we will continue our bold steps unless Saakashvili resigns.”

“I assure you that there will be not a single step back; I will be beside each of you; I will continue struggle and we will struggle unless we accomplish this struggle with success, because otherwise this country is doomed for a failure,” Burjanadze said.

Eka Beselia of the Movement for United Georgia, a party founded by ex-defense minister, Irakli Okruashvili, said that the opposition struggle should definitely be accomplished with success.

“I can not understand how a political party can turn back and leave the protest venues without achieving results. We are obliged to change this authoritarian regime,” she said late on Monday evening while speaking in the Kavkasia TV’s talk show.