Saakashvili arrested as protest movement carries forward

Mikheil Saakashvili, the leader of the Movement of New
Forces and the Rada Maidan tent city protest, was arrested on Dec. 8 at the
orders of the Prosecutor General’s Office. Earlier in the week, he was named a
suspect in several criminal charges, including supporting members of a criminal
organization and concealing their criminal activity. Saakashvili was brought
this morning to court, which will set bail by the end of the day.

The Poroshenko administration is currently working with
the Georgian government to extradite Saakashvili to Tblisi, his wife Sandra
Roelofs told a Georgian television network on Dec. 10. “It’s possible they will
decide on house arrest but that’s all being done to buy time to get a ruling
from a Georgian court,” she said. “Afterwards, based on a predetermined plan,
they want to extradite him from Kyiv to Tbilisi.” The Ukrainian and Georgian
governments are acting “primitively, flagrantly and without regard to the
international community,” she said.

Several thousand citizens turned out on Dec. 10 for
the “March for Impeachment” that had been announced by Saakashvili before his
arrest. The march visited the Prosecutor’s General Office, Saakashvili’s
detention facility, as well as Kyiv’s central maidan. Its organizers claimed
50,000 were at the maidan, while local police claimed it was only 2,500. Those
MPs supporting the march estimated turnout at closer to 20,000.

Zenon Zawada: With
Saakashvili planning a large protest rally for Sunday at Kyiv’s symbolic central
maidan, the Poroshenko administration realized it had to do something. It’s
currently playing the situation day-by-day in order to test public sentiment.
Therefore, we believe a decision has yet to be made on whether to extradite
Saakashvili, or release him yet again, like a cat toying with a mouse. Despite
Roelofs’ claims, we don’t believe that Georgia is eager to accept Saakashvili,
given all the revolutionary sentiment his presence will renew in Georgia. The
two likeliest outcomes that we see for Saakashvili’s future is that he will be
released at Ukraine’s border with Poland, where he entered, or he will be
released in Kyiv with an electronic bracelet to monitor him.

One option that’s not possible for the government
is keeping Saakashvili imprisoned, which will make him a martyr and a rallying
point for the pro-Western opposition. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko
was widely viewed as corrupt when she was imprisoned. And yet she became a
lightning rod to fight against the Yanukovych administration’s corruption.
Several thousand protesters in response to Saakashvili’s arrest is a strong
showing when considering the harsh weather conditions and general social
climate of demoralization. The crowd will grow larger with every week that he’s
imprisoned.