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Saakashvili not going to step down

Giga Bokeria, one of Saakashvili’s closest associates, gave to understand on Tuesday

Mikhail Saakashvili. Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

Mikhail Saakashvili. Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

TBILISI, October 2 (Itar-Tass) —— Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili is not going to step down ahead of his due time, Giga Bokeria, one of Saakashvili’s closest associates, gave to understand on Tuesday.

“I would like to remind all, including the Georgian Dream coalition and its leader Bidzina Ivanishvili, that the next presidential elections will be held in 2013,” Bokeria told the Rustavi-2 Tbilisi-based television channel. He expressed the hope that “presidential polls will be held in the same democratic atmosphere as the parliamentary elections of October 1.”

Earlier, the Georgian Dream leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili, said that the only right next step by Mikhail Saakashvili must be to announce resignation and to call realy presidential elections. “I think he can do it,” Ivanishvili said. “It will be a logical step after Saakashvili’s statement today,” when he practically recognized the defeat of his party United National Movement in the parliamentary elections. At the same time, Ivanishvhili practically excluded the possibility of impeaching the incumbent president if the Georgian Dream coalition wins the parliamentary elections. “Today, we have no such plan. But if the president does not step down and call early elections, we shall take some steps, and impeachment is not ruled out,” he said.

Saakashvili’s term as Georgian President expires in October 2013.

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