The FINANCIAL– Georgian former Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili who resigned after a series of antigovernment protests in 2018 urges Minister of Internal Affairs to resign. He also said the government should announce Early parliamentary elections.
Kvirikashvili resigned in 2018 claimimg “disagreements” with the leader of the ruling Georgian Dream party, tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili.
A wave of demonstrations started on May 31 to protest against what demonstrators said was a miscarriage of justice following the killing of two teenagers in December.
The protests stopped after June 6, but resumed on June 10 and ended on June 11 with police dismantling protesters’ tents and detaining opposition politicians and their supporters.
The demonstrations followed a series of rallies held in May by hundreds of people who took to Tbilisi streets and erected tent camps to protest an antidrug raid by police on two popular nightclubs, angered by what critics called an excessive use of force against club-goers.
Ongoing anti-governmental demonstrators started on June 20 to express anger at Russian State Duma Deputy Sergei Gavrilov, who had sat in the Georgian parliamentary speaker’s seat while addressing a council of lawmakers from predominantly Orthodox Christian countries — the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO).
The symbolism of a Russian lawmaker speaking in Russian from the parliamentary speaker’s chair touched nerves in Tbilisi, sparking the ire of the public, opposition parties, Georgia’s president, and members of the ruling Georgian Dream coalition.
Police responded with rubber bullets and tear gas.
The Georgian government said 240 people were treated in hospitals with injuries sustained in the violent clashes with security officials after they tried to break through riot police lines to storm parliament.
More than 100 people remained hospitalized on the afternoon of June 21, some with wounds from rubber bullets that police fired at the protesters.
