TBILISI -- The imprisoned former Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, has warned of dire consequences if the ruling Georgian Dream party wins the upcoming parliamentary elections.
"I do expect provocations in the coming days, including during the elections and the days after it," Saakashvili said from prison in written answers to questions sent by RFE/RL's Georgian Service .
Georgia is holding parliamentary elections on October 26 that could see Georgian Dream, in power since 2012, extend its rule. Opposition groups, including the United National Movement, which Saakashvili founded, have said that could derail democracy in Georgia, a warning echoed in the West.
Georgian Dream has passed laws restricting the activity of NGOs and media who receive foreign funding and against what it calls "LGBT propaganda." It has promised to ban all the major opposition parties if it wins.
Those moves and others have prompted Brussels and Washington to take punitive steps. The EU has frozen Georgia's accession to the bloc, while Washington has placed sanctions on some of the country's top officials and prepared a separate package of financial sanctions against the founder and still de facto leader of Georgian Dream, Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Georgian Dream has cast the upcoming elections as an existential choice: between war and peace. Part of its campaign includes posters, juxtaposing black-and-white images of war-torn Ukraine with color images of prospering, peaceful Georgia. Ivanishvili has also suggested Georgia should apologize for the 2008 war with Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has praised Georgia's government for precisely the moves that have vexed Tbilisi's Western partners, such as adopting laws on "foreign agents" and combating "LGBT propaganda."
In his interview with RFE/RL, Saakashvili, 56, said Russia was conducting a "hybrid war" against Georgia and predicted a grim future should Georgian Dream retain power.
"If they rig the elections and seize power, then Georgia will cease to exist as an independent country," Saakashvili said. He did, however, add a note of optimism, saying, "we have rallied around the banner of resistance for 12 years, a new generation is coming up, a generation born in Georgia that was not oriented toward Russia but Europe."
Saakashvili was arrested in October 2021 when he returned to Georgia from Ukraine, where he had lived and served in political roles since the end of his second term. He is now serving a six-year prison term for abuse of power, a charge he and supporters say was trumped up. Saakashvili and his supporters say he has been poisoned while imprisoned.
Western officials, organizations, and others have called on Georgia's government to release Saakashvili, including a recent resolution from the European Parliament, which the former Georgian president mentioned in his interview with RFE/RL.
"They are demanding my 'immediate and unconditional release' regardless of my health condition, because they know very well that I am being held captive on trumped-up charges," Saakashvili said.
"I was on the edge of life and death for several months last year. I still have the effects of poisoning," he added.
Saakashvili complained that conditions in prison were dire. "I have not seen the sun for three years, haven't had a breath of fresh air. I am forbidden from making phone calls for completely bogus reasons. In a gross violation of law, members of parliament are not allowed to visit me," he said.
Saakashvili was also asked about Russia's war on Ukraine. During his time in Ukraine, Saakshvili gained citizenship and served as the governor of the Odesa region in 2015-16.
"Russia's eventual defeat in this war is inevitable and a foregone conclusion as long as Europe doesn't succumb to defeatism and the U.S. to isolationism," the former Georgian president said.
"As long as that doesn't happen, Russia stands no chance."
