Georgia arrests opposition figure for attempted arson of government building

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TBILISI, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Georgian authorities arrested a leader of an opposition party on Saturday on suspicion of attempted arson of the court chancellery building in the capital Tbilisi.

The Interior Ministry said Aleksandre Elisashvili had broken into the building at dawn by smashing a window with a hammer, and then poured gasoline and attempted to set the building alight.

In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the ministry said Elisashvili, a former opposition MP, was carrying a firearm and injured a court bailiff during his arrest. It published video showing a handgun lying on the ground and a smashed window. 

Elisashvili, 47, is a founder of the Citizens party, which is part of the Lelo-Strong Georgia coalition, one of Georgia’s three main opposition groups. Those groupings are facing a ban by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which has said it will soon file a lawsuit to the Constitutional Court to outlaw their activities.

A spokesperson for Lelo said the party had no contact with Elisashvili and did not comment further. 

Once among the most democratic and pro-Western of the successor states to emerge from the Soviet Union, Georgia has become increasingly authoritarian since the start of the war in Ukraine, government critics say.

On Friday, street protesters in Tbilisi marked 365 days of continuous demonstrations against Georgian Dream, which has jailed nearly all opposition politicians and made nightly arrests of rallygoers outside parliament since last November, when the government said it was pausing accession talks to the European Union, an abrupt reversal of a longstanding national goal.

Ties with the European Union, which Georgia aspires to join, have come under growing strain over concerns of democratic backsliding in the South Caucasus nation, with Brussels saying Tbilisi is no longer on track to become a member.

Elisashvili, who was an MP until last year, participated in a brawl in parliament during a debate in April 2024 over a bill on “foreign agents”, which government critics decried as a Russian-style law aimed at quashing civil society and dissent. Amid a heated debate over the legislation, which ultimately passed, Elisashvili punched Mamuka Mdinaradze, leader of Georgian Dream’s parliamentary faction and a key force behind the bill, in the face while the latter was speaking from the despatch box.

(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Toby Chopra )