Ex-president Saakashvili returns four of five cans of honey ‘to stop speculations’

Georgian currently detained ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili has returned four of five 50mg cans of honey following the reports by Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili that ‘a person on hunger strike never eats half a kilo of honey.’ 

 

A member of the United National Movement (UNM) opposition party Eka Kherkheulidze says that doctors advised Saakashvili to receive honey and he requested five cans of it. However, ‘to stop speculating with the issue’ he has already returned four cans. 

 

Saakashvili has been on hunger strike since the day of his detention in Tbilisi on October 1. 

 

Garibashvili claimed yesterday that Saakashvili, who returned to Georgia ahead of the October 2 municipal elections after eight years in political exile, is using his hunger strike to cause tension in the country ahead of the election runoffs on October 30. 

 

Saakashvili left Georgia in 2013, shortly after the Georgian Dream coalition defeated his United National Movement in the 2012 parliamentary race.

 

Saakashvili claims he returned to mobilise the opposition supporters to ‘save the country from the regime of the Georgian Dream ruling party.’

 

He believed that the UNM would have defeated the ruling party in the municipal race which would have led to snap parliamentary elections and the change in authorities.

 

Saakashvili was convicted for abuse of authority back in 2018 and sentenced to six years in prison in absentia

 

He has also been charged with four other cases related to illegal takeover of property, embezzlement, illegal rally dispersal and illegally crossing the border, which are ongoing.