Azernews.Az

Azeri to stand in Georgia presidential poll An Azerbaijani will run for presidency in Georgia for the first time in the neighboring country's history. The candidacy of the chairman of the International Council of Georgia's Azerbaijanis, Fazil Aliyev, will be nominated in time for the January 5 election by his organization and the National Assembly of Georgia's Azerbaijanis, the assembly president Dashgyn Gulmammadov said Friday. "Most likely, Aliyev will be backed by the country's Azerbaijani and the entire Muslim electorate," he said. Gulmammadov said a special group to promote the nominee has already been set up and that the Aliyev will head his election headquarters on his own. Georgia is home to some 500,000 Azerbaijanis, according to informal data. Meanwhile, the Georgian opposition's hopeful has vowed to expand relations with Azerbaijan if elected president. Outlining his steps while on the campaign trail, Levan Gachecheladze, who is considered the common candidate of the country's opposition for president, spoke of bilateral relations and regional projects. Any project useful for Georgia would remain in force, he told a Baku-based TV channel. "With this in mind, we will be the legal successor of Saakashvili's government. We are not revolutionaries but merely oppose the injustice of incumbent authorities," Gachecheladze said. The statement came as several members of the local Azerbaijani Way movement picketed the Georgian embassy in Baku to show their solidarity with Georgia's opposition whose peaceful protests were recently broken up with the use of force in the capital Tbilisi. The protesters said Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was to blame for the current tensions in Georgia. They carried posters saying "Azerbaijani opposition is in solidarity with the Georgian opposition", "Saakashvili, respect democratic values" and "Saakashvili - a fake democrat". The picketers indicated that democracy and human rights were not the internal affairs of any country. They called on Georgian authorities to put an end to what they called restrictions and acts of state terror, and to allow the country's citizens to express their views freely. Several thousand opposition demonstrators protesting in Georgia clashed with police on November 7. The law enforcers used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the pickets after six days of protests in the capital. The demonstrators called for the U.S.-backed President Saakashvili to resign, claiming official corruption and failure to root out poverty. Saakashvili has rejected the protesters' allegations and said he would not step down. He blamed Russia for helping to orchestrate the protests against him. Moscow retaliated later, calling on the countries with levers of influence on Tbilisi to urge Georgian authorities to refrain from what it described as destructive steps. It argued that Saakashvili's statement showed that Georgia's hostility against Russia persists. According to Georgian health officials, 569 people were injured in the clashes. The Interior Ministry said 32 protesters were detained. Saakashvili ordered a 15-day nationwide state of emergency over the eruption of unrest. In protests that began November 2, demonstrators initially called for changing the date of parliamentary elections planned for the fall of 2008 to April that year. But after Saakashvili rejected their demands and accused their leaders of serving the Kremlin, they made his resignation their central aim.