Mainstream, India
Mainstream, Vol XLVI, No 15
March 29 2008
Georgia: Saakashvili Manipulates his Return to Presidency
Saturday 29 March 2008, by Mansoor Ali
While the US position in the former Soviet republics, which once
constituted the formidable USSR before the 1991 disintegration, has
considerably weakened over the years, Georgia has, in its latest
presidential election in January this year, witnessed the return to
power of President Saakashvili, perhaps the most brazenly loyal
friend of Washington in the region whose antipathy to Moscow does not
bear repetition.
This unrepentant pro-American head of state, whose Georgian
citizenship itself is in doubt in view of his proximity to the US
leadership, mounted every form of propaganda and administrative
pressure on the electorate to win the election. But those did not
succeed; so he finally managed to emerge victorious in the first
round of the presidential poll through ballot-rigging on a massive
scale. Without waiting for the counting of votes from even 100
polling stations he declared himself the President of Georgia once
again, thereby fuelling wide resentment among his political
adversaries and opponents.
The hollowness of the election process has been exposed by not only
the Opposition leaders but impartial foreign – Western – observers as
well. According to a noted Opposition leader, G. Yaindrava, `the
originals of the Election Commission’s protocols do not coincide with
the papers concocted in the Central Election Commission’; by way of
illustration projecting Saakashvili’s falsification, Yaindrava
mentioned the results of voting in the provinces populated by
Azerbaijanis and Armenians – the pro-US leader received almost 100 per
cent votes here although it’s quite well known that he is not popular
in those areas.
Some European Union (EU) observers feel that the election campaign
witnessed many violations from the side of the ruling party:
everywhere administrative and financial resources were
indiscriminately used to garner votes while at the same time there
was tight control over the mass media and irrefutable facts surfaced
about genuine voters being frightened away from exercising their
franchise. On the other hand, as compared to Saakashvili the
Opposition candidates had little scope and opportunity to conduct
effective propaganda campaigns.
Several groups of foreign observers, including those from the
International Expert Centre for Electoral Systems (Israel),
Independent American Centre of Political Monitoring (USA), Central
European Group for Political Monitoring (Great Britain) were of the
considered view that the elections could not be characterised as
democratic, transparent, legal and in conformity with the European
principles of democracy and the norms of international law. According
to German political analyst E. Schnaider, `the elections could not be
called legitimate, even with great reserve. People were threatened
and forced to give their votes to Saakashvili.’
Then we have the case of Dieter Boden, a prominent German diplomat
heading the OSCE Observer Mission in Georgia. A day after the voting,
the OSCE observers gave a positive evaluation of the election.
Subsequently Boden said in an interview to the newspaper Frankfurter
Rundschau: `We are receiving more and more reports from our observers
about widespread and serious violations during vote counting in the
election. These include gross, careless and deliberate rigging, for
example, in Batumi.’ In his opinion, the situation in the Georgian
Central Election Commission (CEC) was one of chaos.
On why the OSCE gave a positive assessment of the Georgian
presidential poll a day after the vote, Boden proferred an
explanation even if it did not carry much conviction: `Those serious
violations were not yet exposed by that time.’
He also urged the Georgian Opposition to submit to the OSCE and the
Georgian CEC the facts they have at their disposal confirming
electoral rigging. He felt the CEC was the only body which could
revise the election results and declare them invalid.
Boden’s credentials are impeccable: he enjoys the reputation of being
Georgia’s loyal friend, a person well acquainted with the situation
in the country: he headed the OSCE mission is Georgia in the
mid-nineties; he was a Special Representative of the UN
Secretary-General in Georgia from 1992 to 2002 – currently he is
working for an international observer mission of the OSCE Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).
However, whatever Boden may belatedly say, the Western community
members from the US have preferred to `close their eyes’ to the
electoral violations and finally accepted Saakashvili’s victory.
THERE is yet another striking development: according to the country’s
Central Election Commission (CEC), 48 per cent of the voters took
part in the elections and of them 72.5 per cent voted in favour of
the country joining the NATO, that is, only about one-third of
Georgians want their country to join the Alliance – this exposes the
failure of the massive pro-NATO propaganda of the state’s power
structures, a majority of the political parties, NGOs; it further
brings out the unreliability of the research conducted by several
sociological services claiming that 80 to 90 per cent of the Georgian
population was ready to vote for the NATO. In this context Georgia’s
expeditious entry into the NATO is fraught with unforeseen
consequences: observers maintain that such a move on the part of
Tbilisi would not only worsen Moscow’s present ties with Washington
but also lead to internal violence, problems with regard to the
legality of deployment of American contingents on Georgian territory
and counteractions and counter-campaigns against full scale
deployment of American bases in the country.
Nonetheless, what is beyond dispute is a weakening of Saakashvili’s
position. This is an objective reality without any subjective
colouring or bias manifest in the presidential poll outcome. The
Opposition, on its turn, is able to comprehend its own power to shape
events and has thus started preparations to seriously compete with
the ruling party taking into consideration the forthcoming
parliamentary elections in Georgia to be held shortly.
Meanwhile there is another apprehension: wide international
acceptance of the presidential election result and direct support to
the Saakashvili regime from the side of the West could influence his
line of action in relation to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Observers
and analysts fear Saakashvili may regard the Western behaviour as
giving him a right to permissiveness and he could thus be prompted to
take a risk in using force in order to solve the problem of
`separatist regions’. Such apprehensions and fears cannot possibly be
brushed aside.
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