If there are elections in Georgia, you may bet some major scandal will take place with Russia — most probably over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia or South Ossetia.
With regards to the latest conflict, it is suspicious why the international community (basically some of the heavyweight countries) did not comprehensively respond to the drone downing incident. If Georgia is being trumped on, then why not call facts their own names? “Allegations” or “presumptions” of Russia shooting down the plane are simply not good enough: in the 21st century it is possible to determine who used military force — therefore, it is unclear why the reaction has been muted.
Also, Russia chose to legalize its ties with Abkhazia and South Ossetia in a very precarious time — exactly when Georgia is having crucial parliamentary elections. Why couldn’t the “malicious Russians” wait for a month and unfold their intentions after the elections in Georgia — especially that they are supposed to hate Saakashvili? In other words, Russia’s actions are paving way for Saakashvili’s victory in the parliamentary elections through giving credibility to the “external threat” argument.
It is also strange that amidst the allegations of election fraud during the presidential elections this January, Russia’s president Putin was among the first to congratulate Saakashvili with the re-election. It is suspicious when the arch enemy is glad that hated Saakashvili is re-elected.
It is not to say of course that Russian and Georgian authorities somehow act in accord. No, far from that. Just that Russians are consistently aggressive and if they wanted to see Saakashvili leave Georgia, they would not pitch him the major international incidents right before the elections.
The international observer missions such OSCE also behave rather odd: the OSCE report on the presidential elections this January dubbed the outcome as “widely in line with the democratic standards”, but noted violations that were simply outrageous and in fact cast doubt on fairness of the election outcome.
It looks like all the interested actors in the region want to keep the situation under control: while Europeans suspect Saakashvili of authoritarianism, the Americans think Georgia is a young democracy and a few violations here and there can be overlooked. The Russians on the other hand, have learnt how to deal with Saakashvili’s over-populistic style of governance and therefore know what to expect from his seemingly “dangerous” initiatives.
Saakashvili’s party “National Movement” will win the parliamentary elections with a 52-53% of votes in their favor. This is a prediction of course, but any other result is simply hard to imagine.
Although it is not because the Presidents’ team is popular at the moment — on the contrary, they aren’t having the best of times. After the Speaker Nino Burjanadze announced her retirement from the Georgian politics and from the ruling party, the authorities look rather depleted of their popular faces.
Also, since the Presidential elections this January very little has changed: the opposition regards Saakashvili as an illegitimate president, alleging that he rigged the elections. After a series of mass protests, the opposition postponed this issue until the parliamentary elections in May — claiming that as a majority in the parliament they would initiate his impeachment.
After the presidential elections in January, the opposition drew up list of demands which they saw as a precondition to fair elections in May. The authorities rejected these demands and instead wrote up their own memorandum, outlining the issues they would be willing to discuss.
After repeated talks, dialogues, promises, etc. almost all of the issues raised by the opposition were left unanswered. Moreover, the authorities changed the tact on the compromises they were willing to make. As a result, the situation remains tense and unfavorable for free and fair elections.
The political tension in Georgia is certainly less than it used to be several month ago. Still, however, there is a huge lack of trust and confidence among the political players, what we find very dangerous. [We are] seriously concerned about the low level of political trust in administration of the elections.
Low level of trust in the election administration is a precondition for things going wrong. The election administration has repeatedly discredited itself for covering up the violations during the last election in January.
For instance, Georgia’s public defender was consistently obstructed by the Central Election Commission from viewing the polling station video recordings. And when finally he was able to view a sample of the recordings after 3 months (!!!), he discovered grave violations which were rejected as “groundless”.
Georgia’s former Defense Minister and Saakashvili’s outspoken critic Irakli Okruashvili was granted asylum by the French authorities. Last month, Okruashvili was jailed in absentia for 11 years by the Georgian court on charges of extortion and large scale bribery.
To remind, the criminal case was brought against Okruashvili in September 2007 after he publicly accused his former ally Saakashvili of a number of scandalous crimes. This prompted large scale protests which eventually resulted in November 7 forceful dispersal of the demonstrators.
A part of the Georgian opposition rejoiced this fact as it confirms that the case against Okruashvili was politically motivated. Logically the Georgian authorities must be upset at a leading EU country sheltering their wanted man, or should they be?
The circumstances surrounding Okruashvili’s case suggest just the opposite. Back in September 2007, Okruashvili was arrested and later released after he confessed of fabricating the accusations against president Saakashvili for personal political dividends. After that Okruashvili was released on a $6 million bail — the amount Okruashvili denies having paid.
The effect was that Okruashvili had discredited himself by retracting accusations to save his own skin and in addition showed the money he had been illegally accumulating “without” his former allies’ knowledge.
The case against Okruashvili was not dropped and according to the law he was supposed to remain in the country. In the meantime, somehow Okruashvili got a Schengen visa and flew to Germany for medical examination without any obstacles. Once away from Georgia, he restated his accusations against Saakashvili and claimed to have been pressured to retract them in the first place.
Okruashvili also said that he did not intend to leave Georgia — he was given back his passport with a valid visa and boarded on the plane against his will.
One thing is certain: for the Georgian authorities Okruashvili’s presence in Georgian jail is not advantageous — he would be considered a political prisoner and give momentum to the public outrage. Therefore, better have him somewhere else — best of course would be Russia, but, France would work as well — anywhere but Georgia.
From this perspective, it is not a tragedy that Okruashvili found himself a new home. On the contrary, that Okruashvili is relaxing in Paris and not challenging the authorities side by side with the opposition, does not make him look like a martyr he was in September 2007.
Okruashvili, who also chairs an opposition party, is of course not very effective from far away. Once in a while he pops up on a live broadcast, or through interviews to the newspapers. Other than that, he remains detached from Georgia’s mainstream politics.
A real challenge to the authorities would be if Okruashvili returns to Georgia now — would he be arrested after the French court has accepted he is a political fugitive? His return to Georgia could have a major impact on the parliamentary elections scheduled for May 21. Another question is if would risk spending time in jail in case the public does not respond to his self-sacrificial comeback.
If Okruashvili wants a part in the Georgian political life, he then should be pondering his return before the elections. If Paris is OK, then he might as well stay there and forget about his political ambitions.
In a surprise twist, the parliament speaker and the leader of the ruling National Movement Nino Burjanadze left the Georgian politics. She was going to top the National movement party list for the upcoming parliamentary elections, but because “it was not possible to reach consensus in the compilation of the National Movement’s party list”, she announced her retirement.
Burjanadze has been widely considered as the moderate and constructive voice within Saakashvili’s administration. They way she explained her move suggests that she was unhappy at the role she held within the party — that is, she didn’t like her marginal influence.
It is therefore expected that Burjanadze will not vanish from the political scene and will either create her own party or find her place in the ministers’ cabinet. One thing to take into consideration is business interests of her allies: if she switches side, her former allies are likely to come under examination of relevant establishments (former defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili’s experience shows how soon that can take place).
While this is a question of speculation how and when Burjanadze will reemerge on the political scene, one thing is certain: the National Movement lost an popular member.
Georgia’s public defender Sozar Subari attacked the Central Election Commission for turning a blind eye to the violations during the presidential elections in January 2008. He demanded resignation of the head of the election administration Levan Tarkhnishvili (a demand opposition has been voicing for months).
The study of the video material from 8 polling stations revealed that results were inflated by some 5,474 votes, claims the public defender. These violations remain uninvestigated. Moreover, the Central Elections Commission has been consistently obstructing efforts to see the footage from the polling stations:
What is the purpose of installing CCTV cameras if no one is able to watch the footage? When those people [in the CEC] do not want us to see what the CCTV cameras have recorded, they can not command confidence… It is undisputed that violations happened, because it can be seen clearly that the same person cast two ballots.
Public Defender Sozar Subari has been vocal of the authorities lately, especially after the parliament refused to hear his bi-annual report on human rights in the country this March citing the “length of the document and lack of time”.
Georgia’s hopes to gain the NATO Membership Act Plan at the Bucharest summit last week were dashed by a polite refusal from the alliance members. In exchange for the setback, Georgia was promised that the door which was open for it all these years, would now be wide open.
MAP has been on Georgians’ minds for a long time now. Ever since the Rose Revolution which brought into power the Western educated Mikheil Saakashvili, it all looked like a fairytale: a young democracy is was going to be rescued by the benign West.
MAP was going to be one of those rescue missions Georgians have been expecting for a long time. Only Georgia was refused, but with some encouragement: around December his year we will be having another tea gathering and we will look over this issue once more. Thank you, keep trying.
So why was Georgia refused MAP?
MAP is a process of preparing the country for entry into the NATO, which can take years — Albania for example kept it under the pillow for the whole 9 years. With Georgia’s territorial conflicts, uneasy neighborhood and explosive regional dynamics, to match Albania’s 9 years in the waiting line for NATO would be an act of flabbergasting optimism.
This being said, MAP would only be the first step towards the NATO membership, which could be dragged out endlessly. It is essentially a political decision and without a strong political will within the alliance of a couple dozen countries with different views, there always will be something to point at. Even so, Georgia did not even get that green light which could be blinking for years.
In the meantime, some voices from the NATO are calling for reforming the whole idea of MAP — have something along the lines of “doors wide open, but no guarantees”. How cynical would that be if Georgia finally received a reformed MAP which would not guarantee the membership at the end of the day!
Another facet of refusal just has to be Georgia’s recent “hiccups” - situation in the country which saw a carefully crafted image of Beacon of Democracy fall under the category of “one of those special post Soviet democracies”.
The November 2007 events that grew into dispersal of the demonstrators, state of emergency, forceful shut down of TV stations, political reprisals and questionable presidential elections — just gave the NATO skeptic members superb arguments to postpone Georgia’s aspirations for another few annual meetings.
And it does make sense: NATO countries don’t want to worry about such things happening within their alliance. Four years ago, if one listened to Saakashvili, such a mess would be automatically excluded as “democratic institutions would ameliorate conflicts in a consensual manner”. But, things change…
There is of course the Russia factor. Russia has been vehemently opposing NATO’s expansion to its borders. Recently Russians have even threatened to use “all means” to stop this from happening. With oil and gas being a very handy commodity for the Europeans, it is unlikely that many would want to upset the reemerging and resourceful Russian bear.
Strange misunderstandings take place around the Georgian authorities, especially as of late. “Dialogue”, “breakthrough”, “unprecedented”, “first time in the history” – are words that pop up daily from the leaders of Saakashvili’s administration. Yet, often something comes up to spoils the celebration.
One of the recent flops was the reaction to Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski’s interview to Reuters, where he supposedly links EU-Russian trade negotiations to the condition to grant Georgia and Ukraine NATO Membership Act Plan. In other words, Kaczynski was reportedly ready to veto the trade agreement unless Georgia and Ukraine were granted NATO membership access.
The same day, the Georgian authorities responded with a glow: “honorable response”, “with allies like this we will succeed”, “thank you”, “breakthrough”… A few hours later Poland’s president retracted his words, saying he was misquoted.
Relations with Russia are never easy, especially on the background of troubled history. The interaction between the two countries got so low that apart from economic embargo and visa restrictions, even the transport and postal communication was ceased.
The newly re-elected Saakashvili traveled to Moscow to extend his hand of friendship once again. Miraculously, things seemed to fall into their places: transport links were said to be resumed, embargo lifted, Russia would never recognize Abkhazia or South Ossetia and even the Georgian side was said to open a check point on the part of the Russian-Abkhazian border (an issue Georgia links to agreeing to Russia’s entry into WTO)!
Also, since the Presidential elections this January very little has changed: the opposition regards Saakashvili as an illegitimate president, alleging that he rigged the elections. After a series of mass protests, the opposition postponed this issue until the parliamentary elections in May — claiming that as a majority in the parliament they would initiate his impeachment. 
January 2008. He demanded resignation of the head of the election administration Levan Tarkhnishvili (a demand opposition has been voicing for months). 
