Following the clashes between in Tbilisi last week there have been talks between President Saakashvili and opposition leaders.

RFE/RL reports that the meeting took place on Monday. Prior to the meeting the opposition issued a five-point memorandum with their demands. They were: constitutional amendments to weaken the president and strengthen parliament; the reorganization of the Interior Ministry; amendments to the electoral law; the appointment of a new central and local election commissions; and an end to censorship of the media.

At the meeting President Saakashvili is reported by Civil.ge to have proposed setting up a commission to work on a constitutional reform to create “balanced system, in which there will be place for both the strong president and the strong parliament.”

The next day Civil.ge reported Gigi Ugulava, the mayor of Tbilisi and close ally of President Saakashvili, as saying the following: “What we offer them [the opposition] is a commission on constitutional reform, chaired by an opposition representative; that means that new constitution will be tabled in the shortest timeframe. This new constitution will significantly increase powers of the parliament at the expanse of the presidential powers … The government will be composed by political forces, which will win in parliamentary [elections] and president will not participate in this process.”

There is a rumour that President Saakashvili may indeed be willing to do a deal that will weaken the president and increase the power of the prime minister. To understand why, context is important. Recall that Saakashvili is term-limited and young. On the assumption that politically he cannot scrap term-limits and that he is not about to retire from politics, then the logic of the rumour is that the constitution would be amended to strengthen the government at the expense of the president and that Saakashvili would then assume the role of prime minister at the end of his current presidential term. This sounds like a Russian solution! Anyway, there is at least the prospect of constitutional reform in the fairly near future.