The President of Georgia met with representatives of the Kobuleti self-governance.  Mikheil Saakashvili spoke to them about the ongoing political events in the country, and assessed the existing situation as oppression of state institutions. It is unacceptable for the Head of State to stop all of the social projects in Adjara and decrease the financial budget of the region.

“Unfortunately events are not going well in Adjara – you know that Adjara was practically left without a budget. The budget they are passing now I don’t know whether it is because they want revenge for the fact that Varshalomidze, each one of you, and I love Adjara so much or it is just a pet peeve and they are having fun at the expense of the autonomous region of Adjara. It is a fact that Adjarians are being punished for something now. All of the social programs have ceased to exist, also the program of temporary shelter - everything the people of low means needed. This Government campaigned on helping the poor people and the first thing they did was block the way for the poor people who needed the government’s assistance the most, which you and I did very effectively. You know that mandarins sell cheaper this year, and they are almost blaming this on us. People are trying to do something through Levan’s connections but this needs the Government’s efforts. The opposition cannot do anything about it. I am saying all of this with a broken heart. Generally, what is now happening is a full attack on the institutions. I know very few countries, where the government riots against the opposition, and we all remember very well when this was happening in Georgia in the 90s, and it ended very badly. However, back then the government was at least rioting under the flag of an independent Georgia, and it served a very specific idea.  No reckless groups of 100, 200, 300 or even 10,000 people can change the rule of law and governance by the people. Nobody can replace governance by the people with governance of a small or even large groups of reckless crowds. We must understand that Georgia is a nation and not a crowd, and nobody can make me stop walking. I will always walk with the people and I don’t even need security, or armored cars or helicopters etc. They can take everything away. I will walk! Georgia is a small country and I am welcomed everywhere. Nobody can make us abandon the main idea of Georgia – development and modernization of the country, European future, and everyday assistance of people. Attack on the institutions serves only one purpose – to create chaos in the country because the institutions are the main guarantor of stability. In the last 9 years we created statehood, which is based on institutions including city councils elected by the people, which have a certain mandate functional until it expires. Local self governance means that it must be serving the local people and not somebody’s pet peeves. This is an attack on the local self governance. I will resist this to the end as a guarantor of the constitution, and not as the leader of the United National Movement. I will do everything to stop this. I want to tell the police of Georgia to protect local self governance; I would like to tell the representatives of the parliament majority – many of them are politicians, they love their country and they must not participate in the actions they will later be ashamed of” – said Mikheil Saakashvili to members of the Kobuleti City Council.