Anchor Marco Werman speaks with reporter Jacob Resneck in Tbilisi, Georgia, about the continued protests there. For the second day in a row, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to demand that the country's president step down.
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI's THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI's THE WORLD is the program audio.
MARCO WERMAN: There were more protests in Georgia today. That's the Georgia that was once a Soviet Republic. For a second day in a row, thousands of protestors gathered in the capital Tblisi to demand that the country's president step down. Opposition leaders in Georgia are staging what they call a “campaign of disobedienceâ€. Reporter Jacob Resneck is in Tblisi. And Jacob, tell us what the form of this campaign of disobedience is taking?
JACOB RESNECK: Well, they've actually changed the tactics a little bit. The numbers are a little lower today in front of the Parliament – still the tens of thousands. The atmosphere is calm and remains peaceful, but at about 4:00 today the opposition announced that their imposed 24-hour deadline for the President to resign had elapsed. And what they're doing is they're going to have three concurrent demonstrations on a daily basis. One's going to be in front of the Public Broadcasters office. The Public Broadcasters have come under criticism because they have not been giving live coverage of the demonstrations. They've just been fitting it into the newscasts, which the opposition had been saying it was not adequate. And they're going to also have demonstrations in front of the Presidential Administrations office, and then they're going to keep having demonstrations in the afternoon at Parliament, and then they're all going to march together and meet up at the Parliament every evening. And I think it's kind of interesting – you have to imagine – these are different parts of a major city. So this is going to effectively seal off major arteries of Tblisi and snarl traffic and going to – it's already having quite a big impact on the day-to-day life.
WERMAN: And how has President Saakisvili responded to this campaign of disobedience?
RESNECK: Well, he had a televised address, and he didn't say specifically anything about resigning. He reiterated what he had said on April 7th, which was two days before the demonstrations, that there is open to dialogue with the political opposition. Then in a briefing with the international press corps about an hour later, he responded to questions and he said, “The answer is no. I'm not going anywhere. My term doesn't expire until 2013.â€
WERMAN: All right. Jacob, we're going to speak with you just a little bit in a moment, but first, I understand you've got a young journalism student with you. Tell us who she is?
RESNECK: I'm here with Sopo Ebrilizi. She's a journalism student at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, and she's been blogging on the up to the hour events in Tblisi.
SOPO EBRILIZI: Hi.
WERMAN: Hi, Sopo. Good to speak with you. Yeah, I understand you're 22 years old, aspiring journalist. I'd like to know, first of all – do your sympathies lie with either the President or the opposition?
EBRILIZI: You know, I can say that I think that I'm quite objective. I'm not for the President, not for the opposition.
WERMAN: Do you think the President should resign?
EBRILIZI: But I think that President should resign. But I think it's better still to wait to the elections of 2013.
WERMAN: Right. I was going to ask you because President Saakisvili was elected in 2004, re-elected in 2008. So why should the opposition parties want him to step down now? Why don't they just wait to vote him out of office in the next election?
EBRILIZI: You know, after the August war in 2008, people in the opposition leaders are criticizing him a lot, because they're blaming him for just losing the territories. They also don't like that the democratic institutions like media, and there's no justice in whole Georgia. So that's why they are criticizing him and demand that he should resign immediately. They say that they can't wait anymore, but there are still some people that say, “Let's wait until the elections of 2013.†So I don't know what is going to happen because people who are the demonstrators are not just going to quit.
WERMAN: Sopo Ebrilizi, thank you very much for speaking with us. And I'll have another quick word with Jacob, please.
EBRILIZI: Thank you so much.
RESNECK: Okay.
WERMAN: So Jacob, maybe you can give me a little more insight into why the opposition parties are not really willing to wait to vote out President Saakisvili in the next election in 2013?
RESNECK: Well, there have been large-scale accusations of irregularities and fraud in the last round of elections back in January of 2008. So the mandate that Saakisvili has – his democratic credentials I should say, really took a beating after those irregularities and allegations of fraud. So the economic crisis is going on, they're still smarting over the disastrous war with Russia last summer. They're afraid if they wait until 2013, they could just have other rigged elections. So they want to take things into their own hands. And you got to remember that Georgia has quite a rich history of street demonstrations. And it was only back in 2003 when they had the so-called Rose Revolution that brought President Saakisvili into power in the first place.
WERMAN: Finally, Jacob, is there any sign that the government's going to try to break up these demonstrations? Or is it just so calm that you know, they're just watching?
RESNECK: You know, the Interior Ministry -- they said from day one that they're going to wait it out as long as it takes. It's going to be interesting to see these new thoroughfares shut down, if the anger from ordinary people – you know, if that will put pressure on the authorities to do something. It's really too early to tell. The Deputy Interior Minister said on the first day that they're willing to put up with some municipal inconvenience for the sake of national democracy. We'll see if they hold to their word.
WERMAN: Speaking to us from the Georgian capital Tblisi, reporter Jacob Resneck. Thank you very much, Jacob.
transcript
GIPA Journalism School Blog