by Vladimir SOCOR
Attendance at opposition rallies in Tbilisi has dwindled to a trickle, with only a few hundred protesters manning round-the-clock pickets for a standard fee of 30 Lari, plus food rations per night. The intention to bring opposition protesters to Tbilisi from the countryside has failed thus far, despite several announcements within the past fortnight by opposition leaders through the mass media -to which the same leaders allege that they are denied access.
Hoping to re-energize the anti-government protests, radical leaders have considered extending the traffic stoppages, from Tbilisi’s main avenue into the country. They threaten to cut off Georgian transport arteries, unless (or until) President Mikheil Saakashvili agrees to resign and call snap parliamentary and presidential elections. Given the transportation infrastructure within Georgia, the east-west arteries serve both domestic and the international trade at the same time. The opposition’s declared intentions threaten not only the national security and economy, but also strategic interests of neighboring countries and the European Union, as well as long-declared (though recently lethargic) United States policies.
