Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has posted online a photo of his Kyiv-Tbilisi flight booked for the evening of 2 October.

In a video address, he called for a high voter turnout in the "referendum." "Everyone should vote, make our choice and after polls close, all of us should take to the streets in our towns and village centres and jointly defend our victory," Saakashvili said.

The local elections will be held in Georgia on 2 October. The opposition calls the voting a "referendum" that will, as they believe, define whether an early parliamentary election will be held in the country or not. The ruling Georgian Dream earlier committed under an EU-brokered deal to hold a snap parliamentary poll if it received less than 43% of the cumulative vote nationwide in the local elections. However, the ruling party reneged on that commitment.

Gharibashvili stressed that as soon as Saakashvili arrives, he will be imprisoned. He also accused Saakashvili of seeking destabilisation in the country.

"His only wish and goal is to regain power, which is an unattainable dream for Saakashvili and his killer and oppressive team. Today, (our) state is strong and neither Mikho (diminutive of Mikheil) nor his team should think that it is 2003… (when Saakashvili came to power). Everyone will face responsibility for any provocations with the full strength of law," Gharibashvili said.

After leaving Georgia, Saakashvili moved to Ukraine and served as governor of Odessa Region under former President Petro Poroshenko. In a short while, Saakashvili fell out with Poroshenko and was stripped of his Ukrainian passport and deported from Ukraine in February 2018. He returned to Ukraine after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky came to power and reinstated his Ukrainian citizenship in 2019. Since May 2020, he has been serving as head of the executive committee of Ukraine's National Reform Council.