Citing past praise by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for his reforms, former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili launched a new political party in Ukraine on Friday to fight corruption, just days after resigning bitterly as a regional governor. Saakashvili, who is widely credited with cracking down on graft when he led Georgia from 2004 till 2013, quit as governor of the coastal Odessa region last Monday, accusing his erstwhile patron, President Petro Poroshenko, of blocking his reforms there. His political allies said his repeated criticism of authorities in Kiev had made him a target of political infighting. At a news conference in Kiev, Saakashvili played an old video of a meeting with Trump in which the New York real estate tycoon praised the Georgian as a model reformer. Saakashvili, who assumed Ukrainian citizenship to be eligible for the post in Odessa, went on to say he would look to bring about a snap election as soon as possible and by peaceful means.
