Incarcerated former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has predicted that there will soon be a change of administration in Georgia and proposed that the authorities sit down for talks with the opposition.

"No one can resist the will of the people, and events may develop swiftly and according to a very difficult scenario. The only thing I want to tell Ivanishvili [Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party and businessman, accused by the Georgian opposition of discretely controlling the Georgian administration] is that he should sit down for talks with the opposition and discuss the only issue, i.e. the peaceful transfer of power," Saakashvili said at a court hearing for one of his criminal cases which he attended remotely.

He commented on a number of Georgian domestic and foreign policy issues, and said in conclusion that despite his physical weakness his spirit could not be crushed, as he is "part of the Georgian people."

Saakashvili refused to discuss the criminal case against him, and the Tbilisi City Court continued the hearing without him.

Saakashvili secretly arrived in Georgia on September 29, 2021. He was detained in Tbilisi on October 1 of the same year, put in prison in Rustavi and subsequently went on hunger strike. He was transferred from the Rustavi prison to a prison infirmary in the Gldani neighborhood of Tbilisi on November 8 without the consent of his family. Saakashvili was moved to a military hospital in Gori on November 20, and he ended his hunger strike. On May 12, 2023, he was admitted to the Vivamedi clinic in Tbilisi. He is still a patient at Vivamedi.

There are several criminal cases against Saakashvili ongoing in Georgia. He has called his detention illegal and the charges against him falsified.