Head of the ruling Georgian Dream party Irakli Kobakhidze says that ‘no national reconciliation’ will take place until the United National Movement (UNM) opposition party and its leaders admit to ‘very serious crimes they committed while in office and then leave politics.’ 

However, Kobakhidze says that the UNM has no plans to quit politics. 

The idea of national reconciliation, referring to making peace between former and current state leaderships, belongs to the opposition and currently arrested ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili. 

Saakashvili claims that he is not interested in taking a high political post and that reconciliation is necessary for the country to move forward. 

The former president, who was arrested in Tbilisi after eight years in political exile on October 1, initially stated that he returned to help the UNM to regain power and remove the Georgian Dream from the state leadership.