Saakashvili leads latest protest to impeach Poroshenko

Mikheil Saakashvili, the former head of the Odesa regional
administration, led his latest protest on the streets on Kyiv on Feb. 4,
promising to present to the public his endorsed alternate Cabinet and
presidential candidates, as well as initiating a campaign to pressure MPs to
impeach the president. “We will publish the photos of the homes and addresses
of deputies who are supposed to vote for Poroshenko’s impeachment,” Saakashvili
said from the protest stage. “We will form groups and go their homes. We will
approach peacefully.” He said he is capable of tripling pensions, which he
accomplished as president of Georgia.

More than 10,000 attended the protest, according to
news reports, while the police estimated 2,500 participants. Among them was
Yegor Sobolev, the deputy parliamentary faction head of the pro-EU
Self-Reliance party. Beforehand, Saakashvili accused the president of
organizing another protest in the city center on the same day to interfere with
his effort. In late January, a Kyiv court placed Saakashvili under nightly
house arrest.

Zenon Zawada: Saakashvili
hasn’t been intimidated by being placed under house arrest, nor by criminal
charges filed against his close ally David Sakvarelidze. Meanwhile, Poroshenko
is trying to carefully restrict Saakashvili’s activity without making a martyr
out of him. On the one hand, grassroots pressure is needed to force reforms
upon Poroshenko, who is even ignoring the urges of top Western officials.

At the same time, the former Georgian president’s
activities are making a precarious political situation in Ukraine all the more
unstable. The tension between them has reached an acceptable balance at the
moment, but one false move from either side and the political situation can
easily become destabilized.