FEAR OF INSTABILITY GROWS IN GEORGIA

Major opposition parties in the South Caucasus nation of Georgia vowed Wednesday to boycott Parliament until the government releases a prominent opponent detained recently.

Although politics in Georgia, a country of more than 4 million people, have always been sharp-elbowed, the arrest of the opposition leader, Nika Melia, suggested an alarming pivot to more repressive policies by the governing party, Georgian Dream.

Melia, chair of the United National Movement, a political party founded by a former president, Mikheil Saakashvili, had blockaded himself into the party’s headquarters in Tbilisi, the capital. To make the arrest, police officers scaled fire ladders onto the roof and battered through barricades of furniture inside the building.

Melia stands accused of fomenting a crowd to storm Parliament in 2019, a charge he has dismissed.

In a joint statement issued Tuesday, several U.S. senators sharply criticized the arrest, saying it “jeopardizes what remains of Georgia’s democracy and its Euro-Atlantic path.”

The statement called for Melia’s release and for a dialogue between parties to resolve the political crisis that has been brewing since a contested election in October. Members of several opposition parties, including the United National Movement, contend that the vote was rigged and have refused to be seated in Parliament.

A member of the United National Movement, Zaal Udumashvili, told local news outlets, “We are ready to sit down at the negotiating table, provided that Nika Melia will also be sitting at the table.”

The escalating standoff has alarmed Western diplomats who for years have held up Georgia as a democratic success story in the former Soviet Union.