Lady With 20 Years Demonstrative Experience

April 13, 2009 at 10:38 am (Uncategorized)

 

 

Lia Lazashvili April 11;2009, on the demonstration in front of the Parliament

20 years ago, Lia Lazashvili remembers standing with her friends in front of Parliament, demonstrating the soviet government. She recalls one of the leaders, Irakli Tsereteli, began to lead the group in prayer. Many were on their knees when Soviet soldiers came through the crowds with shovels and tanks, beating people to death, and causing a panicked stampede that killed several others.

 

 

 

 

“Somebody helped me run to the Rustaveli Theatre, where I was able to hide,” said the 60-year-old activist.  “For several years, I would avoid walking by Parliament, it was so terrible.”

 

Lazashvili eventually overcame her fears, and her history as an anti-government protester has placed her back in front of Parliament several times, including last Thursday, April 9. She was among the crowd during the 2003 Rose Revolution protests, where she became an active member of now President Mikheil Saakashvili’s  United National Movement, and served as a Tbilisi City Council Deputy representing the party.

 

But she quit in 2006, disappointed in how the government spent money, and how they ignored the opposition.

 

“I told them ‘You are Neo-Bolsheviks,’” she recalls. “The freedom we gained 20 years ago we are losing and we need to fight for it again.”

 

Now, Lazashvili is a Republican Party member, and heads the Mtatsminda region office. She chose this party, she said, “because it has 30 years stable experience and is oriented on liberal democracy.”

 

Lazashvili was born in 1948 in a village in Gurjaani, a grape-growing region northeast of Tbilisi. After finishing the school, in spite of parents’ resistance, she passed exams to Tbilisi State University of Theatre and Cinema and moved to the capital city. From 1970 to 1990 she was an actress in the Youth Theatre. Lazashvili is the participant of many political processes in Georgia.  She wasn’t interested in politics at first, but said end of the 1980s, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, caught her interest. “I was witness to many important events in Georgia becoming an independent state and always know what happens in the political kitchen,” she said.

 

Lazashvili does not have a husband, but said, instead, she is married to politics.

 

 “It is too loud statement, but it can be said I have devoted my life to participate in each prosperous process for Georgia.” she said.

 

She believes that a democracy can’t function unless criticism is allowed openly, one of her main complaints about Saakashvili’s Nationalist movement as well as the Soviets.

 

Her coworkers also admire her dedication.

 

“If 40 percent of Georgians were as honest and diligent like Lia, our country would be perfect,” said 51-years-old Bela Guguladze, Lazashvili’s coworker at the Republican party office.

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