GEORGIA IN TURMOIL

Economist, UK
Nov 15 2007

An election is called, emergency rule is ended, but the damage lingers

TO A visitor who has not seen Georgia since the "rose revolution"
of 2003, the changes are stunning. Grand buildings ruined by war and
neglect have been restored. Where there was night-time gloom there
is now light. Roads have been repaired and chronic energy shortages
are a thing of the past. Money is being poured into infrastructure
and schools.

In Batumi, which in 2003 was outside central-government control, new
hotels sprout everywhere. In the past two years Armenian tourists have
returned. One reason is that, after the rose revolution, President
Mikheil Saakashvili sacked all the traffic police, who had previously
done little except extract cash from anybody on the roads.

"It used to cost $100 in bribes to drive here from Armenia," says
Levan Varshalomidze, head of Batumi’s local government. This year
the Georgian economy should grow by 10%, despite a Russian economic
blockade.

This all makes recent events in Georgia more depressing. On November
7th the government cleared opposition protesters from Tbilisi’s main
street after five days of demonstrations. The move went wrong as
the opposition called in reinforcements, provoking riot police into
liberal use of batons and tear-gas. A state of emergency was declared
and opposition television stations were taken off the air. The next
day Mr Saakashvili declared that he would hold a snap presidential
election on January 5th. "You wanted early elections," he said. "Have
them even earlier!" This week the government announced the lifting
of the state of emergency, too.

At the start of the protests, Salome Zourabichvili, a former French
ambassador who became Georgia’s foreign minister before being
sacked by Mr Saakashvili, said that the government liked to show
reconstruction to foreigners to mislead them. "We are living in a
Potemkin country," she scoffed. This is unfair, but life is hard
for most Georgians. Former industrial towns such as Zestaponi and
Kutaisi remain devastated by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The
countryside is dotted with skeletal remnants of factories. One of
Georgia’s biggest exports is scrap metal.

Expectations of Mr Saakashvili were so high that they could only be
dashed. Alex Rondeli, an analyst, suggests that part of the problem
is that no politician who wants to stay in office can be truly honest
about how long rebuilding Georgia is going to take. "It will take
time," he says, "more than one generation." Mr Saakashvili and his
friends have been tough and acted quickly, but in the process they
have made enemies. Many claim that Mr Saakashvili has let power go
to his head.

If he is no longer half as popular at home (and abroad) as he
once was, it still seems likely that he will win the presidential
election. Badri Patarkatsishvili, a tycoon, has declared that he
will run. The opposition is furious because this may divide the
anti-Saakashvili vote. According to David Usupashvili, leader of
the Republican Party, the aim of the ten-party opposition coalition,
who have chosen Levan Gachechiladze, a former businessman, as their
candidate, is to scrap the present presidential system. "We are not
searching for a better Saakashvili," he says.

The opposition may suffer from claims that some of its leaders
were in contact with Russian spies during the protests. Russia
still backs two breakaway Georgian enclaves, Abkhazia and South
Ossetia. As Giga Bokeria, an associate of Mr Saakashvili’s, notes,
"Moscow’s declared goal here is regime change." That is why European
and American attacks on the government’s crackdown on the Tbilisi
protests have caused irritation. Outsiders report that Mr Saakashvili
is in high spirits, untroubled by the criticisms, which he brushes
aside as ill-informed. Mr Rondeli notes of Russia that "we are in a
cage with a cruel dog who is biting us. We are asking Europe to open
the cage and let us out but all they say is: ‘be nice to the dog.’"