A hearing in the November 7 case against former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is underway at the Tbilisi City Court, with Saakashvili present in the courtroom.

Speaking at the trial, he declared that the opposition’s central failing is that it reacts to events rather than shapes them.

“If they’re threatening to have me thrown out, I see no point in attending. I come here for you. Our main problem is that the opposition is making the same mistake: it reacts to events instead of driving them. Ivanishvili should be answering them, not the other way around. The opposition must build a bridge to the people, embrace them, and leave behind those who hold the people in contempt. In our time, the state stood beside its citizens; prices were kept under control. For years, they promised us petrol prices would fall; instead, they raised them, and everything else went up with it. Our task now is to force them to halve the fuel excise duty. Electricity tariffs have risen because we are paying for corruption. Noghaideli, who was speaking at the last hearing, is pocketing money from electricity imports from Russia.

I would be delighted to see an active, aggressive opposition, but trying to establish yourselves by tearing me down will get nobody anywhere. However many times you insist that Saakashvili is a politician of the past, you are supposed to be the politicians of the future. Ninety per cent of those who criticise me were themselves active in politics during my time, some of them in government. How exactly does that make Saakashvili the past and them the future? There are people I raised from nothing, put on their feet, dressed, and they turned on me. But the majority are decent people. What is needed now is unity, a shared fight, and the setting aside of personal ambition. Many have made that sacrifice and ended up in prison. I respect them, and we must all understand what that means.

Noghaideli owns an electricity distribution company and keeps pushing up the tariffs. He came here because he blended with Georgian Dream. They need him symbolically, to show what kind of creature has been standing alongside them. Today, they were afraid to bring Burjanadze; this witness is no longer good for them. I want to extend a hand to everyone, stand together, and remain focused on the people. We must reach that outcome on our own two feet. When people say Saakashvili can’t win over the Georgian Dream vote, we did in 2018 and 2021. Those weren’t just our own supporters’ votes,” Saakashvili declared.

He also addressed former President Salome Zourabichvili directly, saying it would have been proper for her to acknowledge, even in a single sentence, that her positions at the time had been wrong.

“I have more voters than anyone else, and I want elections too. To Salome Zourabichvili, I say: it would have been right to admit that her past positions were deeply mistaken. In 2007, Russia bombed our air defence system. Zourabichvili repeated Grachev’s words — you cannot accuse your own country of bombing itself. On June 20, when children had their eyes gouged out, Salome was eating lobiani. Madam Salome, I bear you no ill will, but it would have been proper to say, in even one sentence, that your positions at the time were wrong,” Saakashvili said.

He went on to urge that “the opposition’s task is to set aside every grievance and every personal animosity.”

“Sanaia explained very well the episode of my fall in Gori and compared it to Trump’s stumble. They say Saakashvili was crawling on the ground in Gori, yet when Trump stumbled, that was apparently nothing. Anyone who carries on scoring points at my expense has no future whatsoever,” he added.

For context: the prosecution charges Mikheil Saakashvili in connection with the violent dispersal of protesters on November 7, 2007, the raid on the Imedi television company, and the criminal seizure of property belonging to Badri Patarkatsishvili. Also charged in the same case are Vano Merabishvili, Zurab Adeishvili, Davit Kezerashvili and Gigi Ugulava.