Burdzhanadze calls for early elections in Georgia

Nino Burdzhanadze, ex-speaker of Georgian parliament calls for early presidential and parliamentary elections in Georgia to be held in spring of 2009.

"The government of Georgia has lost a lot of trust among the world community; it is spoken about with irony and not taken seriously. Therefore, we should not let it spread over the whole country," Ms Burdzhanadze stated in the press conference on December 10.

Let us note here that Nino Burdzhanadze plans to stand for presidency at the next presidential election, as her husband Badri Bitsadze said earlier.

She drew attention to the fact that events in Georgia were realistically perceived abroad, which could tell negatively on the financial help rendered by the West. In her opinion, the aforesaid should persuade the public to force the authorities into amending the Electoral Code and appointing the early presidential and parliamentary elections on spring 2009, the RBC Agency reports.

Besides, Ms Burdzhanadze, a former supporter of Mikhail Saakashvili in the time of "revolution of roses", has treated the recent cadre reshuffling in the Government as "spontaneous, inadequate and unreasonable." These changes were unreasonable also from the viewpoint of choice of time.

"When the Minister of Foreign Affairs with a delegation was holding the most important meetings in Helsinki, was it possible to nominate Grigol Vashadze to the post of the Minister and dismiss all the ambassadors?" Ms Burdzhanadze has asked.

She added that in Helsinki these changes caused indignation and surprise of all the ambassadors: "People start talking that we are looking not like a country but more like a banana republic."

According to Nino Burdzhanadze, members of the Russian delegation marked with irony that talks with Georgia are senseless, as every five minutes they have changes in their government.

She finds unacceptable also the statements made by the newly-appointed ministers. "Under their utterances, the priorities should be the same, both in defence and international relations, as before the war," the "Trend" Agency quotes Nino Burdzhanadze as saying.