Despite an opposition demand and a threat to stage hunger strikes and mass protests, the ruling party said it had no plans to immediately sack chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC).

Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze reiterated the ruling party's earlier response to the opposition demands that a new CEC would not be constituted until mid-March.

Speaking in a pre-recorded televised address on February 21, Burjanadze maintained that progress had, however, been made on two other key opposition demands. She said that six people arrested in connection with the November 7 events had already been released and others would be released following legal procedures. Tamar Kintsurashvili, the director-general of the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB), Burjanadze said, would resign as soon as a new GPB board of trustees was formed in agreement with the opposition and with the approval of Parliament. This, she said, was due to happen on February 26 in case of an agreement with the opposition.

Other ruling party officials, meanwhile, have indicated that agreement was unlikely against the background of opposition ultimata.
 
“These are issues which can not be resolved unilaterally,” MP Pavle Kublashvili of the ruling party said on February 21. “They [the opposition] should show a readiness to take part in resolving these issues, with a public statement to the effect that they are ready to cooperate with the authorities and they should stop calling the authorities ‘illegitimate.’”

The opposition, however, is reluctant to be seen to back down. Unless what it calls ‘all political prisoners’ are released and Kintsurashvili and Levan Tarkhnishvili, the CEC chairman, are dismissed, it fears losing political momentum. Although they acknowledge that these demands are not necessarily crucial, they need to show immediate political gains to their supporters, who, they maintain, are even more radical in their demands.

“We want Levan Tarkhnishvili to resign; we want that everyone arrested [in connection with the November 7 events] can return to their families,” MP Manana Nachkebia of the opposition New Rights party told Mze television on February 21. “That would be a tangible result; that would be a practical realization of agreements and not just virtual promises [by the authorities].”

Meanwhile, as a foretaste of what is to come, the nine-party opposition coalition erected several tents in downtown Tbilisi on February 21. Mass protests – in which the opposition has promised to turn Georgia into a series of what it calls tent towns – and a mass hunger strike, with certain opposition leaders participating, are due to start on Friday. As well as the capital, Kutaisi, Batumi, Rustavi and Zugdidi are braced for protests.

Also on February 21, opposition lawmakers tabled a draft resolution calling for the establishment of an investigative parliamentary commission to look into “the illegal actions” of law enforcement agencies on November 7, 2007. The draft resolution, which was posted on the opposition Conservative Party’s website, says that the commission should be composed of 14 MPs, seven each from the ruling party and the opposition.

Such a commission has, however, already been shot down by the ruling party. Its creation, it said, would only happen after the spring parliamentary elections and would, in any case, only give a political assessment with the possibility of criminal proceedings ruled out.  The ruling party also said that the commission’s remit should include an investigation of “the mass unrest, the [attempted] overthrow of the constitutional system and cooperation with foreign special services,” by some opposition political figures.