Ex-President Saakashvili proposes interim leadership and new Reformers’ Council for UNM, naming Nanuka Zhorzholiani Executive Secretary

“A party congress will be called at the end of July to elect temporary leadership. I am proposing a Reformers’ Council to effectively rebuild the party from scratch and radically transform the United National Movement, getting it back into fighting shape,” former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili posted on social media.

As Saakashvili writes, the party must, without fail, create new faces.

“In recent weeks, a discussion I initiated on the future of the United National Movement has been actively underway, with a great many people taking part. I’m delighted by how many people have got involved. It means that a large part of Georgian society understands the importance of the United National Movement for saving the country and for its future development. At the same time, people are dissatisfied with the current state of the opposition and demand change. That is why we are beginning root-and-branch, systemic reforms!

Today, July 8, the term of office established by the charter expires for every office-holder in the United National Movement. We owe each of them enormous gratitude because they had to work in the most difficult of circumstances. I especially want to express my appreciation and thanks to our people in the regions; they have been, still are, and will always remain the movement’s main force and its undefeated spirit! We are a democratic movement, and we will certainly uphold that principle. This time, however, rotation will not happen in the usual way, but by a new, entirely different route.

The movement is now declaring a transitional period. We are actively preparing for these intra-party reforms. At the same time, we must be extremely careful not to give the regime any additional formal pretext to ban us. That is why a congress will be convened at the end of July to elect a temporary governing body. Given the risk of the dictatorship’s interference, the only person whose formal position we should preserve, as a mark of solidarity for as long as he remains in prison, is our leader, Levan Khabeishvili.

I propose creating a Reform Council to essentially rebuild the party, fundamentally transform the United National Movement, and get it back into fighting shape. This will be a public platform, and, besides party members, we will open the door wide to others as well.

This Reformers’ Council, which I will chair, must become a centre of attraction and a public platform not only for party people, but also for those professionals and patriots who, for various reasons, have until now held back. The Council’s main aim is to say a new word in Georgian politics (as our movement has always done) and to create a modern, youthful, popular movement. The party must, without fail, create new faces. The renewed movement must prioritise young people to inject fresh energy into the party. The Reformers’ Council will be an entirely horizontal council, in which everyone will be equal and independent,” Saakashvili writes.

As Saakashvili notes, he has decided that the executive secretary of the Reformers’ Council will be Nanuka Zhorzholiani.

“This is an extremely difficult period for me personally. Being in prison has greatly hindered my direct contact with these people and with society. Over these years, a great many new, formidable leaders have emerged whom, unfortunately, I do not yet know personally. That is precisely why I have decided that Nanuka should be the Reformers’ Council’s executive secretary. Together with the Council, she will be my main link to these people. In the autumn, the Reformers’ Council will announce its plan for fundamental transformation. We will create a flat, horizontal movement where members and active supporters make the decisions. Formal positions will be minimised, and every internal structure will be elected and subject to recall by universal vote.

There is a dictatorship in this country, and a struggle by parties with a traditional structure cannot be effective. We must open up a broad front and carry out a programme of inflicting “a thousand cuts” on the dictatorship, and thereby bring it down. This structure must also be able to withstand the threat of the party’s possible formal dissolution. It is one thing when a movement has several offices, which a dictatorship can easily shut down, or has several office-holders who can be isolated; it is quite another when the movement is entirely decentralised, so widely spread and deeply rooted that uprooting it becomes practically impossible, when the home of every member, activist and supporter is itself a separate, autonomously existing office; when the arrest of any single leader no longer, in principle, means anything, because everyone is a leader!

Our funding model, too, will be substantially refined, giving our people a far simpler way to get directly involved. Our goal is not competition with others or pointless debates, but to keep our sights fixed on removing the dictatorship, on saving Georgia at this most difficult historical moment amid enormous dangers, and on returning to the path of great reforms. These are my thoughts. So, what do you think?” Saakashvili writes.