that the restoration of the royal dynasty was a "desirable dream of the Georgian people". He also emphasized that if the people of Georgia chose this model of governance, "a candidate to the crown should be selected among representatives of the royal dynasty, and he should be suitably raised to be King from childhood." The Patriarch's sermon gave an unexpected continuation to the political crisis in Georgia. Although the Patriarch's sympathies towards the monarchy are not something new for the regular parish to hear, several opposition parties immediately seized on the opportunity to advance their slogan "Georgia without a President", a reference to the model of parliamentary rule advocated by the Georgian opposition. Many politicians expressed their support to a constitutional monarchy, with a transitional stage in the form of a parliamentary republic. The authorities' response to the calls for a monarchy was restrained. Nino Burjanadze, a co-speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, has expressed skepticism about the idea and stated that Georgia will not be able to decide on such an important issue until its territorial integrity is restored, referring to the secession in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. President Mikheil Saakashvili, having jokingly remarked on his remote Bagratid ancestry, said that "serious consideration is necessary to this issue so that we do not add new problems to the already existing ones." Giga Bokeria, an influential member of the parliament from Saakashvili's United National Movement, tried to soft-pedal the Patriarch's statement: "The patriarch didn’t suggest establishing monarchy today. He meant this may happen after Georgia resolves its fundamental problems." He later alleged that the opposition's call for a constitutional monarchy was merely a populist move: "they speak about constitutional monarchy here and do not say anything about it abroad. This is their double-standard policy." Ilia II himself has avoided further comment on the topic. Meanwhile, the opposition New Rights party, which stood aside from the anti-government demonstrations staged by a coalition of ten opposition parties in October and November 2007, became the only major political group to add a more nuanced view on the establishment of a constitutional monarchy to their agenda. They issued a special declaration supporting the idea and proposing to hold a referendum on the issue, a suggestion which was also included in the pre-election campaign of David Gamkrelidze, a candidate from the New Rights/Industrialists bloc for the early presidential elections held on January 5, 2008. A