A key ally-turned-opponent of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said on Wednesday the opposition should consider a referendum as a way to try to force early elections after last year's war with Russia, according to Reuters. Irakly Alasania, who quit as Georgia's ambassador to the United Nations in December, said the president had lost the trust of the West and the support of the Georgian people. "He put himself in the situation that whatever he does now will not contribute to resolving the existing problems and crisis," the 35-year-old said in an interview with Reuters days after launching his own opposition movement. "His interaction with international actors is getting more and more limited, because he is not seen as a trustworthy leader any more," he said. "This hurts the credibility of Georgia." Presidential and parliamentary elections were urgently needed, he said. "One of the ways is a referendum, which would enable the citizens' ... demand to be translated into a huge campaign of signatures." Parliamentary and presidential elections in the former Soviet republic are not due until 2013. The Constitution makes no provision for calling elections based on a referendum result, raising the question of whether Saakashvili would have to heed the outcome. A total of 200,000 signatures are constitutionally required for a referendum to be held. It would be called by the president within 30 days of a request being submitted. Saakashvili, who opponents say has an autocratic streak, has come under renewed pressure since a five-day war with Russia in August when Moscow sent in troops and tanks to repel a Georgian assault on the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Alasania, a former diplomatic and security adviser to Saakashvili, said the president had "promised so much but delivered so little." Saakashvili came to power on the back of the peaceful 2003 "Rose Revolution". Backed by the West, his young government won credit for reforming the economy, but critics say Saakashvili's inner circle wields too much power and has stifled the media and political opponents. Alasania regularly polls among the Caucasus country's most popular political figures, thanks partly for making headway in negotiations with the rebel region of Abkhazia, which like South Ossetia threw off Tbilisi's rule in wars that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. But since the August war, both regions have been recognised by Russia as independent states, secured by Russian troops. Georgia has lost what footholds it had, and received 20,000 refugees on top of hundreds of thousands that fled in the 1990s. Alasania is the most high-profile of several defectors from Saakashvili's team since the war. Critics accuse the president of walking into a conflict Georgia could not possibly win, succumbing to months of escalating skirmishes. The West condemned Russia's response as "disproportionate", but also criticised Saakashvili's move against South Ossetia. Alasania said his "team of professionals" was in consultations with opposition parties on forming a coalition, but his support beyond the capital Tbilisi is untested. He said Georgia should look closer to home for a solution to territorial problems, including by restoring ties with Russia's restive North Caucasus, a patchwork of ethnicities with close historical links across the region. "I believe our relations with the North Caucasus nations will be one of the main instruments for us for the reconciliation with Abkhaz and Ossetian society," he said.
