Apologies for anyone who was hoping for live blogging yesterday, I was teaching myself Twitter (@varske). Although it was a public holiday, I had my Easter holiday early and so needed to catch up with some work. So although we watched the TV to see what was happening, our Georgian colleagues were on holiday too, so nobody was available to translate. So I was reading www.civil.ge and seeing who else was on twitter locally (#tbilisi). There were only a very few twitterers, including the government (@govtofgeorgia), though it soon got bored.
The end result was the day passed peacefully with about 40-50,000 people demonstrating. Gachecheladze and Alasania were cheered, Burjanadze was booed. There were complaints about the lack of broadcasting of the demonstration live on TV, although there were clips every hour.
At the end of the day, the Opposition gave Saakashvili 24 hours to resign. It doesn't seem very likely that he would do so.
For me the most sinister part was the information that closed circuit cameras installed along Rustaveli were being monitored by the police. On the other hand, it's no different from the average British shopping centre on an ordinary day, where it's not even the police doing the monitoring.
Our local staff came in this morning with reports that the Opposition was really badly funded compared with previously (from Patarkatsishvili), whereas the Government was really well organised. The Opposition had only paper banners, no free food was provided to keep people there, whereas the government had rounded up a load of taxis and paid them to take people away.
The police were only bystanding or inside important buildings and had instructions only to take action if the demonstrators tried to enter the buildings and take them over, which didn't happen.
It seems it was a fun day, but the Opposition did not impress anyone with a coherent plan to take over. Nor did Saakashvili impress people with his offer to the Opposition to discuss and improve the Election Code. It's not enough to improve transparency and debate over policies, which is really needed. There needs to be more debate in the press and TV and Parliament.
"Cell no 5" a satirical program which is popular, claimed last night that Saakashvili actually spent the day on holiday and went to Sighnaghi, (see my post here) disgusting some people who claimed he showed contempt for the people demonstrating.
