Protest Rally Takes Break, as Opposition Prepares for Civil Disobedience

Parliament building, Rustaveli Avenue, November 16

It is quiet on the Rustaveli Avenue, where a week-long round-the-clock protest rally was held, after Mikheil Saakashvili, a key opposition leader, asked the supporters on November 14 to go home.

The opposition leaders took a break this weekend to prepare for the civil disobedience campaign against the authorities to force President Shevardnadze into resignation.

Protesters intend to announce strikes and paralyze the work of the local administrations from November 17. Teachers in western Georgian town of Abasha have already gone on strike demanding Shevardnadze’s resignation. Hospital staff in the western Georgian town of Zugdidi was on a two-hour strike on November 15.

Saakashvili urged the police to stay away from work and soldiers to defy their commanders’ “illegal orders.”

Dozen of National Movement opposition party activists staged a sit-in at the Central Election Commission. “We are here to obstruct vote rigging by the election commission,” Giorgi Arveladze of National Movement told Civil Georgia.