About 20,000 people rallied outside the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi on Monday in the fifth consecutive day of protests, demanding the resignation of President Mikheil Saakashvili.

The streets of Moldova and Georgia are boiling with protest and anger, while Kosovo continues to grapple with its self-proclaimed statehood.

Interview with Irakli Alasania, leader of the Alliance for Georgia.

Saakashvili’s address did not have a radical tone this time. Populist rhetoric was also missing. Saakashvili said almost nothing about his vision of how territorial integrity would be restored.

Georgia's United Nations envoy Irakli Alasania has become the latest potential player in the country's ever-changing gallery of opposition leaders, following the December 8 announcement of a coalition between two centrist parties.

As Georgia marks the fifth anniversary of the Rose Revolution the mood is somber and the celebrations of past years are conspicuously absent. This is understandable. The revolution has lost a lot of its luster and Georgians are in a funk.

ZAAL ANJAPARIDZE

How long the opposition’s rally in Tbilisi will last and how long can it maintain the protest mood? Many have asked this question since the seventh day of the protest rally when it became clear that the opposition had failed to take to the streets the number of protesters, which would be a weighty argument for the authorities to effect changes.

DAVID LOSABERIDZE

The rally showed that many people were displeased with the current authorities. The global economic crisis adversely affects the ratings of the authorities, in particular of President Saakashvili, which also forces the sides to seek the consensus.

ARCHIL GEGESHIDZE

It is early to speak whether the Georgian opposition may make President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia step down and whether the early presidential elections will be held.

ZAAL ANJAPARIDZE

The external players, which have their own plans and interests in Georgia and the Caucasus region, have become increasingly involved in monitoring of the internal developments in the country along with raising Georgia’s political temperature.

ZAAL ANJAPARIDZE

Having announced the date for the protest action beginning, the opposition does not tell the people what will happen in the country, even if they manage to oust Saakashvili.

ZAAL ANJAPARIDZE

For the first time, Georgia has not celebrated the anniversary of the Rose Revolution in a traditional pompous way and the authorities have not boasted about their successes as they had done annually on 23 November since 2003.

SERGEI MARKEDONOV

The main reason why the fifth anniversary of the Rose Revolution is not celebrated with a great pomp is that the Georgians are bitterly disappointed with the results of the revolution. In fact, nobody was going to carry out democratic reforms, although the ‘revolutionaries’ had set themselves this goal.

MERAB PACHULIA

Over the past 10 months, most of opposition leaders have not enjoyed public support because they failed to solve important political issues and fell short of expectations of those who were strongly opposed to the government.