By Felix Light
TBILISI (Reuters) -Georgian prosecutors on Monday charged five opposition figures with attempting to overthrow the government, after protests on Saturday culminated in clashes between police and demonstrators in the capital of the South Caucasus country of 3.7 million.
Georgian opposition supporters rallied in central Tbilisi on Saturday, with some leaders promising a “peaceful revolution” on the day of local elections that were boycotted by the largest opposition blocs.
Minutes before polls closed, a smaller group of protesters attempted to seize the presidential palace, before being repelled by riot police using gas and water cannon.
The charges against the five men carry a maximum prison sentence of nine years. Officials have said the protests represented an attempt to seize power.
Separately, Georgia’s Interior Ministry later said that 13 people had been detained in connection with the unrest.
Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Darakhvelidze said the detentions were carried out in connection with laws on attempting to overthrow the government and overturn the constitutional order and taking part in mass public disorder.
Georgia has been rocked by protests for over a year, with supporters of the opposition accusing the ruling Georgian Dream party of authoritarianism, and of seeking to drag the country, once among the Soviet Union’s most pro-Western successor states, back towards Russia, allegations it rejects.
The protest movement has dwindled in recent months, though nightly demonstrations still close Tbilisi’s central Rustaveli Avenue.
In October 2024, Georgian Dream won a comfortable victory in parliamentary elections. The opposition said the outcome was fraudulent; Georgian authorities said the polls were free and fair.
Under Georgian Dream, ties with Western countries have soured. In November, the party said it was freezing European Union accession talks, abruptly halting a long-standing national goal.
Georgian Dream says it is not pro-Russian and that it eventually wants to join the EU, whilst also keeping the peace with Moscow and preserving what it calls Georgia’s traditional Orthodox Christian values.
The party is widely seen as controlled by billionaire ex-prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is sanctioned by the U.S. for what it calls his promotion of Russian interests.
(Reporting by Felix LightEditing by Andrew Osborn and Nia Williams)
