One of the leaders of the Coalition for Change, Nika Melia, has released a lengthy letter from prison criticizing Mikheil Saakashvili. The opposition politician writes that the third president of Georgia “has been choked for many years by jealousy towards him, like a noose tightened around his neck.”
This was Melia’s reaction to Saakashvili’s post, also published from custody on May 27. In it, the former president wrote that when speaking of betrayal after his return to Georgia, he did not mean Nika Melia. However, his former party ally had also made mistakes—instead of demanding Saakashvili’s release at rallies, he allegedly “diverted people’s attention to the elections.” “So let’s not be jealous of each other,” Saakashvili added.
Melia countered with accusations of his own, stating that it is Saakashvili who is prone to jealousy and unhealthy self-love: “Wherever Saakashvili is present, the country’s interests do not exist; there is only his self-serving interest.”
“Perhaps he will finally find the strength to tell the truth and speak himself about the grave mistakes he made and the human weaknesses he displayed throughout 2022.”
Among other things, Melia called on Saakashvili to name the person he considers a traitor. According to the opposition politician, this individual, among other things, acted as a messenger to the authorities and helped the former president strike a secret deal with “Georgian Dream.”
“The general public will find out about these very grave details anyway, backed by concrete facts, and it would be better if he himself names both that person and his partners. <…>
Saakashvili’s endless mudslinging and his periodic talk of betrayal allegedly committed against him serve solely as an attempt to cover up the specific story of his entering into a deal with the authorities in exchange for being sent abroad—a story that, for many reasons, deeply troubles him today.”
According to Melia, Saakashvili has a complex and a fear of this story being made public: “Fear makes a person lie. That is why he behaves so immorally and erratically.”
The former leader of the United National Movement, who later left the party and joined the Coalition for Change, also writes that in 2021–2022, Saakashvili’s secret return to Georgia on the eve of the parliamentary elections became a “salto mortale.” And he was driven to take such a step by “his own insurmountable jealousy” and the fear that “Melia would take the party away from him.”
