KIEV, December 10. /TASS/. Supporters of former Georgian president and ex-governor of Ukraine’s Odessa Mikhail Saakashvili, who now leads the Ukrainian opposition Movement of New Forces, put forth four demands to Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, or national parliament, Olga Galabala, a member of the Movement’s political council, said at a rally in central Kiev on Sunday.
"We know for sure that in a period from December 19 to 22 they [the lawmakers] must accept four our demands. First, we demand a law on impeachment. Our second demand is a law on anti-corruption tribunal. The third demand is second reading of a bill on elections, and fourth, we demand resignations of Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko," Ukrinform agency quoted her as saying.
Apart from that, the rally organizers called on people to gather for another such rally next Sunday.
After the rally, the protesters walked down from the central Independence Square to the detention center Saakashvili had been taken to following his detention on Friday. People demand the politician be released.
Saakashvili’s supporters began their March for Impeachment in Kiev’s Shevchenko Park on Sunday morning. They marched to the Independence Square where they held a rally. According to Kiev’s police, about 2,500 people took part in the protest rally whereas the organizers said it had brought together more than 10,000.
Saakashvili was detained on Friday evening on charges of his reported assistance to a criminal organization. Prosecutors want him to be placed under home arrest. Overnight to Saturday, Saakashvili said he was going on an indefinite hunger strike.
On December 5, police tried to take Saakashvili into custody at the tent camp in central Kiev, but his supporters put up fierce resistance to the police and managed to have him freed.
After that, Saakashvili staged a rally in front of the building of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, or national parliament. The protesters demanded resignation of President Pyotr Poroshenko, the Prosecutor General’s Office and Security Service top officials and insisted the parliament consider impeachment law on that very day.
Ukraine’s prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation against the former Georgian leader into the attempted crime, committing a crime with a group of individuals and complicity with criminal organizations and covering their criminal activity.