National Forum presents action plan

On February 18 the National Forum officially announced its action plan, which focuses on involving broader society in its work and creating organized political, structures in living and working places. According to the leaders of the National Forum Kakha Shartava and Gubaz Sanikidze, civil committees will be responsible for this structural organization process. These committees will create regional coordination councils in different parts of Georgia.

The National Forum has specified several different elements within its action plan. First of all it seeks to enhance the engagement of citizens with politics by providing them with information about all the political processes going on in the country. To avoid political discrimination against employees of Government offices, the National Forum plans to organize protests to defend their rights. Further, it will organize strike to protest against the illegal and unfair decisions of City Halls, Municipalities and different administrations.

The Civil Committees will operate in different regions of the country, and if necessary will cooperate with local NGOs and Professional Unions. The ultimate purpose of the National Forum is to organize mass protests which will remove President Saakashvili.

Gubaz Sanikidze said that peaceful manifestations are the best way of expressing protest towards the President and he intends to widen the Forum’s circle of supporters through frequent meetings between Forum representatives and local people in various parts of Georgia. “The process of forming Civil Committees is already underway. Today we formed the Tbilisi committee and we will develop a chain of such groups in other regions. I would like to underline that we are not interested in setting up committees just for ourselves, solely under our direction. We continue to hold consultations with all the opposition parties in Georgia. This is the way we should walk together as it leads to the spring opposition manifestation,” Sanikidze said.

New Rights member Manana Nachkebia confirmed that consultations with the National Forum have already started. “We think that the role of civil society is very important and if someone decides to contribute, we will stand by them. Today all the opposition parties should work together. Some will organize civil committees, some will meet international organizations, some address other organizational issues, and thus we will achieve our aim. To come to the finish line, we should all show the maximum of cooperation,” added Nachkebia.

Conservative Kakha Kukava doesn’t exclude future cooperation with the National Forum. “In my opinion everything that serves to unite people and opposition is important, so I think that our joint cooperation is quite possible,” he added.

Political analyst Ramaz Sakvarelidze thinks that no matter what tactics the opposition employ to try and gather great numbers of people in protest, no one will be made to join these protests by force. He is therefore confident that the mobilization of Civil Committees will be successful as far as they are a vehicle for expressing the desires of the people.

“As for the decision on the National Forum to protest against the dismissal of employees for their political views, this is widely practiced by Professional Unions in Western countries and in many cases is quite successful. But this won’t make any difference if the Government ignores the protest,” he said.