Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia, 2004-2013 HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sackur.

In the age of Donald Trump, maybe the world is getting used

to international politics delivering the unexpected.

Nonetheless, the political career of my guest today is still

breathtakingly bizarre. Mikheil Saakashvili served two terms

as president of Georgia. He then abandoned his

home country to take citizenship in Ukraine,

serving as a regional governor until he fell out spectacularly

with the Ukrainian President. Now he has been stripped

of Ukrainian citizenship, So is this the end of Mikhail

Saakashvili's political career? Mikheil Saakashvili,

welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you for inviting me, Stephen.

I have to ask you, why on earth are you in the Polish capital? Is it

because, as a stateless person, you have no home and you really don't

know where to go? Well, I have home. I have home certainly in Ukraine,

that is my permanent place of residence. And I still have home in

Georgia. I am here because I was invited by my Polish friends, after

this decision of Poroshenko, and I am here because it is close to

Ukraine, and because from here I am planning my return to Ukraine, which

I had announced that would take place on nine or ten of September.

And we need to deal with a number of organisational aspects of that whole

enterprise. Well, yes. A very polite way of putting organisational

aspects. The truth is, if you go back to Ukraine on ten September, as

you say you will, I can only imagine you will be detained as an illegal

entrant into the country. It was you don't have any right to be in

Ukraine. You have been stripped of your passport and your citizenship.

Well, first of all, I have full legal rights, even if one considers

that I am a stateless person, which obviously is a very debatable thing,

at if I am a stateless person, I am a stateless person in Ukraine. And

stateless persons in Ukraine, under Ukrainian constitution, enjoy all

the rights of... All the human rights inside Ukraine. That is

first. But second, the whole way how they did it, you know, quite

unprecedented that I was on my private trip to the United States.

President Poroshenko waited for me to leave. They changed the

commission, added new members, even more loyal to him, and without any

prior notification, without any public hearings or any kind of

hearings, in a very secret manner, they stripped me of citizenship, in

violation of the Ukrainian constitution, in violation of the

1961 Convention on... Yes, the problem is, you broke the rules. So

I am going back to Ukraine to fight, writes in the court. Well, yes, you

might have your day in court, I suppose, but let's go through this

by stages. Will you that that you broke the rules? You didn't, when

you signed all the forms, fill the forms in four Ukrainian citizenship,

you didn't declare that you were under criminal investigation in

Georgia. And you should have done, according to Ukrainian law. Well,

certainly it's not true. Most of all I declared everything, and they

demanded that I get all the documents, which I filled, because

they published documents with my fake signature, and the prosecutor

general of the Ukraine, in conversation, realised it was a fake

signature because he knows me well and he knows my signatures. Because

I happened to award him with medals when I was president of Georgia,

something like that. So this wasn't even my signature. But even had that

been true, which it is not true, Ukraine prosper President has no

right to deprive Ukrainian citizens of citizenship. It is specifically

when you don't have any other citizenship. And there is the fact

that many people in Ukrainian parliament, Ukrainian politics, and

Ukrainian oligarchs, mainly, they have other countries' citizenships.

They never deprived them of anything. They just went after me

because there was clearly political motivation. And with regard to the

so called Criminal Cases Review Joe, with regard to those Criminal Cases

Review, you let me finish that. Ukraine's prosecutor general twice

wrote back to Georgiaprosecutors saying that it is purely a political

matter. There is no legal substance to the criminal matters in Georgia,

and Ukraine refused officially to recognise that one, 2... Occasions.

So that takes care of the issue. So I am going to stop you, because it

is complex and I am trying to simplify it for our audience.

Because going back to 2007, when you are president of Georgia, it is now

alleged in the Georgian courts, and you face charges as a result of

this, it is alleged that you abuse your power in the way that you

handled and repressed some protest demonstrations, and also in the way

you tried to intimidate, it is said, and opposition TV station. Now,

those are charges that you face in Georgia. The Ukrainians have said

that if you try to get back to Ukraine, they will then consider a

Georgian extradition request to send you straight to stand trial. So why

don't you just miss out the middleman, face the music, and go to

the police the and make your case before a court -- GOTO Tbilisi?

Because I am an active politician. I am a leader of a rapidly growing

party in Ukraine. I have lots of supporters in Ukraine and I pledge

to the Ukrainian people that I will carry on till the very end the flag

of the reforms which I along with other people happen to symbolise.

That is first. Second, when you talk about so-called charges, they have

not been recognised by any other countries in the world. Interpol

specifically refused to issue a search warrant on the arrest

warrant, only, because from the outset it was clear that it was

politically motivated. You are referring to the charges which were

brought by Russian oligarchs, who happened to be in control of the

Georgian government. He was installed by President Putin after I

had finished... Basically after I had finished my two terms in

Parliament, with parliamentary elections. He happened to be the

biggest private shareholder of the Russian oil company, and this man

got $2 billion for elections with the specific mandate which was

openly articulated both by Putin and Medvedev. He said we want in Georgia

a government that will try Saakashvili. You know what is funny

about this, this is all extraordinary complicated. And no

one takes them seriously. Well, it is all very competent, people might

struggle to get a grip on the spot one thing people might understand is

the phrase what goes around comes around. And this man that you

describe as a Russian oligarch, but in fact of course has Georgian

citizenship, he has been your enemy for a number of years, Bidzina

Ivanishvili. When you were Premier of Georgia you tried to strip him of

his citizenship and he stand as a man who's been stripped of your

Ukrainian citizenship. You are a man who has played games in a very, very

difficult region for a long time, and frankly, it has come back to

bite you on the bomb. Let me make it very clear. Ivanishvili lost his

citizenship automatically because he got another country's citizenship,

and that is how citizenship in Georgia is. However, no one has

expelled him for the country, unlike Poroshenko did for me, against me.

And second, we specifically change the law because he was back then the

leader of one of the biggest parties. We change the law

specifically for him and allowed foreign nationals from the European

Union, quite an exception, to run for elected office in Georgia. We

specifically accommodated the law to safeguard the democracy. So these

are two radically different cases. I wish Poroshenko had done it. If

Poroshenko did the same thing to me as I did the Ivanishvili, I would

have been more than happy if he allowed me into the country legally

and allows me to run in the elections. Then he can not even...

Even if it is without citizenship. So these are not the comparisons. We

will get the Ukrainian politics in just a second. I wasn't afraid of

him initially as a competition. I never was afraid, despite his money,

and Poroshenko was afraid of me. And when you said is at the end of the

political career of Saakashvili, what I think it is the end of the

career of Poroshenko. He showed extreme negligence of the law, and

he looks like a very bad but also very weak politician. But also the

oligarchy system in Ukraine, which had been destroyed in Ukraine for

the last only five years. This is very interesting, because you now

condemn Poroshenko, described him as the friend of the oligarchs, a man

who has completely failed Ukraine. Of course, he was a great friend.

You were at college together. He was the man who invited you in 2015 to

come to Ukraine, encouraging you to take citizenship, and then offered

you the appointment as Governor of the Odessa region. Have you paused

for a moment of sort of self reflection, to wonder why Poroshenko

now regards you as extremely bad news? Like so many other people in

your career, you seem to have made an awful lot of enemies, and the

most recent one, of course, is Mr Poroshenko himself. Look, you

said... You were exact when you said I studied in Ukraine. I spent

altogether 13 years of my life in Ukraine, and I was not invited to

Ukraine by Poroshenko. Basically we came almost at the same time to

study in Ukraine from other countries. He came from Moldova, I

came from Georgia. Now, I was, as a student, part of the first Ukrainian

revolution, and then the first Maidan. I was there on the second

Maidan, and I stayed after second Maidan, even if the leader decided

to do the same thing as Poroshenko is doing to me now, to declare me

persona non grata. So part of the Ukrainian landscape and history for

the last 25 years. No offence, but you are not Ukrainian, you are

Georgian. I am Georgian. I am proud to be Georgian. But there are at

intertwined stories of Georgians and Ukrainians. There were Ukrainians

fighting for Georgia in the 90s against Russian immigration, there

were officers only front, on the eastern front. There are many people

of Georgian origin in Ukraine. In the Ukrainian political spectrum.

There is a Ukrainian minister in the Georgian government. So if you will

just talk about ethnicity, these countries are interconnected. And

you are exactly right. I've got lots of enemies, but I would be very

unhappy if they don't consider me their friend. But what we have in

these countries is that oligarchs took over. And things are not as

they look, because Georgia is controlled by one oligarch, Moldova

is controlled by another, Ukraine is controlled by several oligarchs that

control the entire government and more than 70% of Ukraine's GDP. And

then western politicians come, shake hands of, in case of mob over and

Georgia, prime ministers and ministers, in case of Ukraine of

ministers, and they are not in charge of the countries. So who is

in charge of those countries are oligarchs. Stop pretending. Well,

let agree... Hang on, hang on. I need to ask you some questions or we

won't get anywhere. Let's agree that you have lots of enemies in Ukraine.

You call them oligarchs and autocrats. At the problem for you is

that you went to Ukraine, and the Odessa in particular, saying you are

going to root out corruption, you are going to clean out that region.

-- kleptocrats. You fail to do that, because corruption clearly was still

prevalent when you were there. And the problem is, many Ukrainian

stopper but you won't really focused on doing a job in Odessa, you were

too busy playing politics in Kiev, because he wanted the top job of

your self, of prime minister, and to grow the actual prime minister, are

Sony Yatsenyuk, he said you are nothing but the travelling showman

and blabbermouth. You were invited into this country to promote reform,

not to engage in politicking. That was your mistake. Look. I have been

offered three times, on three occasions, by President Poroshenko

to become prime minister of Ukraine and I declined. And it is a

well-known fact. I declined it because I thought that the present

circumstances, they just wanted me for a facade, because that was the

moment where I first became popular. In the Ukraine, they thought it

would sell to their populations, real reforms. Well, a majority of

this he did not want the reforms. From the very beginning, you rightly

said that I stood by Poroshenko's side. I don't regret it, because

basically, things were starting well. Things were starting well

after Maidan. We adopted anti-corruption laws, we created a

national anti-corruption bureau and I was at the helm of making it,

together with others lots of young, idealistic Ukrainians came to

different positions in government, and indeed I went to Odessa as part

of a deal to clean up the most corrupt, but the most strategically

important region of Ukraine, and also a region that was strongly

destabilised by separatists. And moments of Moscow intrusion. And I

went there specifically with clear promise from Poroshenko that he

would help me to clean up there, by also changing some laws in Kiev, and

by making customs more transparent, by making the tax system better, and

instead we got exactly the opposite. The very moment when I confronted

it, and I think we delivered on customs in Odessa, which is the most

important customs in Ukraine, for all the time I was there it was

absolutely clean, and that is a well-known fact. Then we created the

best public services in the whole of Ukraine. I basically pushed the

Central government for the first time in 40 years to build very

important strategic roads, to restore at top because it was the

worst in Europe. We had some achievements.

Changing the laws, allowing them to be reversible. He played the other

side. That is the main reason I said, you quoted him, but two days

ago, there was the anticorruption charge. Another wave of cracking

down on pro-democracy and all that. Do you know what government people

were saying? You are an anticorruption fighter, why do that

if you are successful? They are blaming us for there are issues.

Iker as they are willing to kill their country. We are doing our

best. They turn around and say we will prosecute you for failing to

tackle corruption. Your narrative has a lot of holes in it. One of the

big ones is use a you are Mr Clean, you are going to clean it out and

Poroshenko stock you. -- You say. The political movement you founded

in Ukraine, use a Poroshenko is very frightened of it. Why would he be?

You and your party in Ukraine stand at the grand total of 2%. Why would

Mr Poroshenko be frightened of you now? They are two different things.

I am one of the most popular politicians in Ukraine and no one

argues that. There are periods when I am the most popular... I don't

doubt it. But whether you have popularity is another question

altogether. You can see the polls. It is obvious. I am one of the most

popular in Ukraine. I created a political party without the help of

the media. There was a situation that was obvious, for instance, they

registered absolutely under the same name the Minister for Justice of the

Ukraine registered another political party. They are afraid of somebody.

It is not just one party. Overall in the Ukraine there is a wave of new

generation Ukrainians stepping up. I am not asking for myself. I am an

icebreaker. We need them to get through the hurdles the oligarchy

created. Look at Ukraine, a world record GDP. In Poland, Ukraine, they

start the same conditions, and now look at Poland. Their rights two

centre differences, Poland has oligarchs and no corruption. --

there are two central. Arguably, they had more resources in Poland.

They were very lucky with their political class. They showed their

final face, an ugly face, with all of what they have done. The bigger

picture. Do you worry in the course of your career, I am thinking about

George and the Ukraine, with such chaos, going to war with Vladimir

Putin in 2008 in Georgia, and your decision now to essentially declare

political war on President Poroshenko who you accuse of being a

friend of crooks and bandits and oligarchs, are you not concerned by

selling this chaos in two countries, Georgia and Ukraine, you are doing

the work of Vladimir Putin inadvertently? -- sowing. What

Poroshenko did was what Vladimir Putin wants. He has such pleasure

from it. It is unfortunate. He was the first foreign policy she and to

respond to it. -- politician. He did so with great joy. You don't need

proof. You said I sowed chaos in George. Under my leadership at the

GDP of George went up from 127th to number nine in the world, four

times. We have been the number one reformer 45- in a row with our

leadership. Double-digit growth. -- 45 years in a row. You can quote

GDP, I accept that improvement, but you took a risk. You thought you

could stand up to Vladimir Putin and you failed. You started a conflict

you could not possibly win. The consequences of that are still being

felt in Georgia and Ukraine today. That is your legacy. I have been on

your show several times. Sometimes you actually say I am crazy. I think

you know I am a little bit crazy. I would never be crazy to go and

confront Russia. It is just like lame Ukraine that Russia attacks us.

We have victim behaviour. Despite the Russia attacks, Georgia

withstood it and has the fastest development, strangely, after 2008,

after the world financial crisis and the Russian attack. George's cities

mushroomed and jobs went up and they beat every international benchmark

and waiting. That has happened under my watch. Ukrainians are aware of

that and would want to repeat it in Ukraine. They deserve it. They are

heroic. They get attacked every day. You cannot blame them for it. They

were standing their ground in protecting their country. Before we

end, a quick question about Donald Trump and the way the region, your

region, sees Donald Trump. You made a great point when Donald Trump got

victory in 2016, talking about your association with Donald Trump. You

posted on the Internet posters of view and Donald Trump back in 2012

shaking hands and doing a deal for a hotel that never got built. -- of

you and Donald Trump. Yet you criticised Poroshenko for siding

with Hillary Clinton. As you look at the region today, do you really

think in with Donald Trump is in the interests of Ukraine or indeed

George given his relationship, his ambition, to build a warmer and

better relationship with Russia? Well, first of all, I am very proud

of the project we had in Georgia. It did not get built because I left the

government. For the last five years since I left, as I said, the GDP of

George quadrupled onto my watch. Basically, it is not... In dollar

figures, it is less than under my presidency. A disaster. A sickly old

big projects stopped and so did Trump Tower. -- basically all. Isn't

it true that Donald Trump is a bit of a disaster for Ukraine? Isn't

that the truth? Lock, the United States have been very supportive of

Ukraine's central integrity. And I think that has not changed. There

was a situation with Rex Tillerson and he was very supportive.

Ukrainians deserved all the support of the world for what they achieved.

I would not exaggerate what Donald Trump stands for being good for

Russia. He is not good for Russia's economy and military. I was lobbying

in Congress for Ukraine to defend itself. Not good for Russia. Things

are moving in the right direction. If we speak to you again one year

from now, will you be in politics or prison? If I am in prison, I won't

be in a position to speak with you. Hopefully, we will speak again.

Hopefully we will win and everything I will come true. We have to end it

there. , thank you very much. I hope we can speak again in one year.

Indeed. Thank you very much.