Georgia’s fourth president Giorgi Margvelashvili has welcomed the launch ‘of an inclusive process to overcome tension in the country’ initiated by current president Salome Zurabishvili last week, which includes the involvement of currently arrested third president Mikheil Saakashvili. 

Margvelashvili believes that the process will boost the rating of Zurabishvili and that the first meeting should be held at the presidential palace. 

He does not expect the ruling Georgian Dream party to welcome the process. Initially, Saakashvili said that a ‘large-scale, political amnesty’ required the country to overcome the current tension created by his arrest and opposition’s protests. 

Following this Zurabishvili voiced an initiative for the inclusive process ‘which will allow the country to move forward.’ 

Saakashvili responded to Zurabishvili by a letter on December 11 and offered a meeting, with the involvement of Margvelashvili, in Gori hospital. 

The third president was arrested in Georgia on October 1 after eight years in political exile. 

He is convicted for abuse of power and has been charged with five other offences. 

Now he is undergoing treatment in Gori military hospital, after 50-day hunger strike.