{"id":476417,"date":"2025-10-05T18:23:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T18:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/476417\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T18:23:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T18:23:12","slug":"georgia-pm-says-protesters-tried-to-overthrow-government-vows-crackdown-protests-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/476417\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia PM says protesters tried to overthrow government, vows crackdown | Protests News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irakli Kobakhidze calls on EU ambassador to condemn Tbilisi protests, saying he bears \u2018special responsibility\u2019 for the unrest.<\/p>\n

Published On 5 Oct 20255 Oct 2025<\/p>\n

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Georgia\u2019s prime minister has said protesters who tried storming the presidential palace were trying to overthrow the government, and he has accused the European Union of meddling in his country\u2019s politics.<\/p>\n

Irakli Kobakhidze said on Sunday that opposition demonstrators aimed to \u201coverthrow the constitutional order\u201d and added that EU Ambassador Pawel Herczynski, whom he accused of supporting the rally, bore \u201cspecial responsibility.\u201d Kobakhidze called on Herczynski to \u201cdistance himself and strictly condemn everything that is happening on the streets of Tbilisi\u201d, the Georgian news agency Interpress reported.<\/p>\n

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Kobakhidze also pledged to \u201ccompletely neutralise foreign agents\u201d.<\/p>\n

Georgian riot police used pepper spray and water cannons on Saturday to drive demonstrators away<\/a> from the presidential palace in Tbilisi\u2019s city centre and detained five activists as the opposition staged a large demonstration on a day of local elections.<\/p>\n

Georgia\u2019s Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs said 21 security personnel and six protesters were injured in the confrontations, according to local media.<\/p>\n

Kobakhidze said nearly 7,000 people participated in the protest in the capital of the South Caucasus country of 3.7 million people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey moved to action, began the overthrow attempt. It failed, and then they started distancing themselves from it,\u201d Kobakhidze said. \u201cNo one will escape responsibility. This includes political responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA protester receives help after being hit by tear gas in central Tbilisi [Giorgi Arjevanidze\/AFP]<\/p>\n

The protests erupted as the ruling Georgian Dream party, which critics say is close to Russia<\/a>, claimed to have won majorities in all municipalities, a result that the two main opposition blocs call a sham.<\/p>\n

Former AC Milan footballer Kakha Kaladze retained the mayorship of the capital city.<\/p>\n

Opposition groups boycotted the vote and rallied supporters for a \u201cpeaceful revolution\u201d against Georgian Dream. Thousands gathered in Freedom Square and Rustaveli Avenue in central Tbilisi, waving Georgian and EU flags in what organisers characterised as an act of resistance, before some protesters blocked adjacent streets, started fires and confronted the riot police.<\/p>\n

Senior Georgian Dream party officials have repeatedly denied Kremlin links. In an opinion piece for Euronews last week, Kobakhidze said the country\u2019s aspiration to join the EU was \u201csteady and irreversible\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorgia\u2019s path is European, peaceful, and principled. We are doing our part. We remain steadfast in reform, committed to our obligations, and focused on delivering results,\u201d Kobakhidze wrote.<\/p>\n

The country has been locked in a political crisis since October of last year, when Georgian Dream won parliamentary elections, which the opposition alleged were \u201crigged\u201d. Georgia\u2019s pro-Western President Salome Zourabichvili said at the time: \u201cThis was a total rigging, a total robbery of your votes\u201d, adding that the country had been swept up in a \u201cRussian special operation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Opposition figures have been organising protests since then, prompting strong responses from the government, with police frequently clashing with the demonstrators and making many arrests.<\/p>\n

The Georgian Dream party was founded by billionaire businessman and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia\u2019s wealthiest person. The United States imposed sanctions on Ivanishvili at the end of 2024 for undermining the \u201cdemocratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia for the benefit of the Russian Federation\u201d, said then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irakli Kobakhidze calls on EU ambassador to condemn Tbilisi protests, saying he bears \u2018special responsibility\u2019 for the unrest.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699,2307,12,2579],"class_list":{"0":"post-476417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-union","12":"tag-georgia","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-protests"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115322959714181732","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}