Tbilisi, Georgia, Nov 24: In her first address to the nation as interim president, Georgian opposition leader Nino Burdzhanadze pledged today to hold elections in 45 days and called on police and security services to restore order after a wave of protest swept longtime president Eduard Shevardnadze out of power. Burdzhanadze appealed to Georgia's citizens to fulfill all the legal demands of law enforcement officials.
“Order must be restored immediately not only in Tbilisi but also in all the regions of the country,'' she said in a nationally televised speech.
Shevardnadze resigned yesterday after a decade of mounting discontent and three weeks of protests over parliamentary elections his critics said exemplified the corruption that has plagued the former Soviet republic during his reign.
Some 50,000 demonstrators sang, swung flags and literally jumped for joy outside the parliament building, the focal point of the cascade of events that culminated in Shevardnadze's sudden exit as protesters threatened to storm his residence, a step he said he took to avoid a bloodbath in a region steeped in violence.
“I realized that what is happening may end with spilled blood if I use my rights'' to employ force against the protesters, said Shevardnadze, who for weeks had rejected opposition demands that he step down in the wake of a November 02 parliamentary vote that was widely condemned as marred by fraud.
Bureau Report