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Both the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party and the opposition are sceptical that the country’s ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, who currently chairs the Executive Committee of the Ukrainian National Reforms Council, will keep his recent promise and return to Georgia for the October 2 municipal elections.

They say that Saakashvili, who is a citizen of Ukraine, has made such vows many times over the last nine years.

Head of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party Irakli Kobakhidze has stated that even Saakashvili’s pledge that he will return, ‘which, of course, is not serious’ has boosted the GD’s rating by at least seven per cent.

GD officials say Saakshvili would be arrested as soon as he entered the country as he faces several criminal charges, including the violent dispersal of anti-government mass protests on November 7, 2007, a raid on TV channel Imedi by riot police and the illegal take-over of the property.