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Saakashvili says his ambition stretch further than Ukraine’s premiership

"My ambitions are to establish new rules of the game, which implies a new political elite in Ukraine’s government," he said
Governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region Mikhail Saakashvili Arkhip Vereshchagin/TASS
Governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region Mikhail Saakashvili
© Arkhip Vereshchagin/TASS

TBILISI, February 21. /TASS/. Georgia’s former president and now governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region, Mikhail Saakashvili said on Sunday his ambitions in Ukraine reach further than the prime minister’s office.

"My ambitions are to establish new rules of the game, which implies a new political elite in Ukraine’s government," he said in an interview with the Tbilisi-based Rustavi 2 television company.

He said he has gathered around himself "young and promising lawmakers, representatives of non-government organizations, journalists, various regional leaders and deputy ministers and a couple of ministers."

"These people have got united in a bid to change the country," Saakashvili said.

When asked whether these people could force a core of a new party seeking participation in parliamentary elections, Saakashvili said, "This is not a party, this is a movement like Poland’s Solidarity of Georgia’s United National Movement." "Our key task now is to make the ruling elite step aside to give room to new people," he said.

He did not rule out that many of these people will take part in elections to the Ukrainian parliament. "Ukraine's current government is to go not because I want to take their place but because Ukraine should not have a government embodying post-Soviet, oligarchic, corrupted values," he stressed.

As for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Saakashvili said he thinks this man to be "a politician of a very high level."

Ukrainian mass media reported earlier on Sunday, citing their sources in the government, that Saakashvili could be dismissed as Odessa region governor by early March.