By Georgia!
The inhabitants of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, are not accustomed to seeing hordes of foreign journalists circling the streets, harassing shopkeepers and passers-by for information.
Two months ago, however, the tiny former Soviet republic was the scene of a coup of the scale last witnessed in Czechoslovakia in 1989. As the international community held its breath, the widely unpopular President Eduard Shevardnadze, blamed for the country's dire economic situation and accused of rigging both presidential and parliamentary elections, was bloodlessly removed in a textbook example of a Velvet Revolution. On November 23rd, after several days of massive non-violent protests in the capital, thousands of disgruntled citizens, lead by opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili, stormed Parliament, causing the President to interrupt his speech and evacuate the building. When the military failed to intervene on the President's behalf, citing the desire to avoid bloodshed, Shevardnadze officially resigned. Nino Burdzhanadze, the parliamentary speaker, became interim President and promised to hold free and fair elections in six weeks' time. On January 4th, the Shevardnadze era came to an end when Saakashvili, a 36-year-old Columbia law school graduate, won a landslide victory, promising to fight both corruption and poverty.
However, the fate of the stricken President, and indeed of this tiny country of huge strategic and geopolitical importance, is one of the most interesting to arise out of the ashes of the USSR.
Former Soviet official Eduard Shevadnadze was chosen in March 1992 to lead the country after a series of bloody civil conflicts and the secession of three autonomous regions caused Georgia's first President to flee. Elected to the post by popular vote later that year, he was hailed as a veritable hero who would bring Georgia peace and prosperity. Successfully negotiating with the separatists to hold the Georgian territorial integrity intact, he was re-elected president in November 1995.
Winning more than 70 per cent of the vote, he also managed to secure the largest number of seats in Parliament for his party, the Citizens' Union of Georgia. In his second term in office, Shevardnadze pushed hard for Georgia's integration with the West, applying for NATO membership and sending military personnel to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
He enjoyed, furthermore, the support of the United States, who saw him as a key figure in maintaining peace and democracy in the region. As such, Georgia became the second biggest recipient of American aid per capita after Israel, receiving more than a billion dollars over ten years.
Shevardnadze was re-elected as President in April 2000, this time amid allegations of election irregularities. Facing a declining economy and charges of government corruption, he began to lose both American and domestic support.
Georgians and government officials alike saw Shevardnadze, once praised for his role in ending the Cold War and reunifying Germany, as a failed leader who had been unable to deliver the nation from poverty, corruption, energy crises and separatist conflicts. His last presidential promise was to hold free and fair parliamentary elections. But on November 2nd, international observers began issuing reports describing them as "spectacularly flawed."
The results gave victory to two blocs which supported the President, yet opinion polls had long suggested that Shevardnadze would lose his majority in Parliament. Doubts about the election's legitimacy were confirmed when official results were not released until November 20th, almost three weeks after election day. Shortly thereafter, the US State Department issued a statement saying it was "deeply disappointed with the Georgian leadership."
Anti-government protests erupted in Tbilisi the next day, culminating in the storming of Parliament and Shevardnadze's demise.
The instability that struck Georgia in the last two months was all the more worrying to the US and to Russia because of this republic's geopolitical importance. Washington has invested enormous amounts of political and financial capital in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which, once completed, will be able to transport Caspian sea oil from Azerbaijan to the Turkish Mediterranean coast. At the same time, Russia sees Georgia as very significant in its fight against Chechen terrorists. A Kremlin spokesman, Serguei Iastrjembski, accused Georgia three weeks ago of being an entry point for terrorists heading towards Chechenya. The Russian Defence Minister has also insisted that the Russian troops stationed in Georgia at the moment, a point of contention between the two countries, were not about to be moved. Furthermore, Russia sees the arrival of this new generation of leaders uneasily, fearing for the decline of their influence, as Georgia's new President has made it clear that he is determined to bring the country closer to the West.
It seems, therefore, that Mikhail Saakashvili, sworn in on January 25th, has a lot on his plate. Not only must he deal with his Russian neighbours, he must also face the issue of separatism. Abkhazia is a de facto independent state following a war in the early 90s which cost the lives of 10,000 people. South Ossetia, which has strong ethnic and cultural ties with Russia's North Ossetia, has not accepted Tbilisi's authority since Georgia's independence in 1991. Finally, the South-Western region of Ajaria is now seriously contemplating secession, which could cause even more breakaways, potentially disintegrating the republic altogether. Finally, on the domestic front, Saakashvili must find solutions to Georgia's desperate economic state.
Once considered the most prosperous region of the Soviet Union, Georgia's past of civil war, ethnic conflict, corruption and misrule has drained it of its wealth. Current unemployment figures stand at 20 per cent and the majority of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. Pensioners are, moreover, compelled to live on 14 laris a month, the equivalent of six dollars. At the inauguration ceremony, attended by Colin Powell and Igor Ivanov, the Russian foreign minister, Mikhail Saakashvili declared that he would fight for the recognition of Georgia's sovereignty. He also promised to "uproot corruption" and bring an end to the widespread poverty which has plagued the nation.
With an additional 166 million dollars in aid, promised by the American State Secretary, and the approval of over 95 per cent of the population, Saakashvili has the means to transform Georgia into a healthy and developed nation. Let us hope that he does.
29th Jan 2004