Georgian bomb attack aimed to ‘instigate instability’

The explosive in a car carrying Givi Targamadze, the head of the opposition United National Movement (UNM), was detonated in Tbilisi on Tuesday.

Neither Targamadze, who was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car, nor the driver were seriously injured. However, four people were hospitalised following the attack.

Targamadze, a close associate of former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, currently living in exile in Ukraine, was one of the leaders in the Rose revolution – widespread protests in November 2003 against reported electoral fraud in the country.

The BBC reported that Targamadze was charged in absentia in Russia “for funding mass protests in the country in 2012-2013”.

In a statement following the explosion on Tuesday, Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said the attack “can be considered an act committed against the state, but also a provocation set up by Georgia’s enemies to instigate instability in the country ahead of the elections”.

In a post on social media, former president Saakashvili blamed former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili for the bombing. “In my opinion, [Targamadze] was selected as a target, because he actively cooperated with the law enforcement bodies and Ivanishvili was too scared of this,” Saakashvili was reported as saying.

Parliamentary speaker David Usupashvili, the parliamentary speaker, was reported by The Times daily as suggesting that “the attack was a Russian plot to undermine Georgia before the elections on Saturday”.

A hotly contested general election is due in the country on Saturday, with the AFP news agency saying that the “two pro-Western parties are neck and neck in opinion polls and have equal chances of forming Georgia's next government.”