Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has given up his security detail in an unusual gesture prompted by a dispute with his rival, Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, his office said Wednesday.
Saakashvili has “completely given up” his security guards, Saakashvili’s spokeswoman, Manana Manjgaladze, told AFP.
On Tuesday the prime minister appointed his personal bodyguard to head the agency in charge of personal security of high-ranking officials including the president, prompting the latter to give up his bodyguards.
The presidential administration on Wednesday pointedly released a video showing Saakashvili leaving the presidential palace accompanied only by First Lady Sandra Roelofs, as he headed to the airport for an official visit to Azerbaijan.
During the 20-kilometre (12-mile) ride, Saakashvili drove the car himself, according to a video shot by Georgian Public TV and posted on Saakashvili’s YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbzPbxPZDP0&feature=youtu.be)
Saakashvili previously travelled in a motorcade and was always accompanied by bodyguards. Ivanishvili has criticised him for demanding an overly large and costly security detail.
The move highlights increasing tensions between the country’s leaders after the president’s United National Movement (UNM) party lost legislative elections to Ivanishvili’s coalition last October.
The prime minister backs constitutional amendments that would limit the president’s powers to sack and appoint the cabinet without the parliament’s approval.
On Tuesday, Ivanishvili published on his Facebook page an open address to Saakashvili calling on him to give a clear-cut response within the next few days.
Saakashvili has expressed his readiness to accept the amendment, but has said that the government must stop a “witch-hunt” against former officials.
Several former top Saakashvili officials have been arrested and thousands of UNM supporters interrogated over the last three months for alleged wrongdoing, prompting warnings from top European diplomats over selective justice and persecution of political opponents.
After winning the October polls, Ivanishvili called on Saakashvili to resign, though he later withdrew the demand as the international community expressed dismay over growing tensions in the country.
The two must share power until October 2013, when Saakashvili’s second and final term expires.
The hard-fought parliamentary polls in the ex-Soviet nation of 4.5 million were praised in the West as an example of a democratic transfer of power.
But some commentators have raised fears about a “Ukraine-isation” of Georgia, drawing parallels with the prosecution and imprisonment in Ukraine of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her allies.
Georgian president ditches guards in dispute with PM
