‘GEORGIAN DREAM’ COMES TRUE
EDITORIAL | OCTOBER 29, 2013 5:58 PM
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By Edmond Y. Azadian
The presidential election in Georgia is not only significant for the
Georgians, but also for its neighbors in Armenia and the entire region.
Georgian Dream is a political coalition put together by the Georgian
billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili to unseat President Saakashvili and
his United National party ruling for the last 10 years.
Mikheil Saakashvili came to power through the Rose Revolution, which
ousted President Eduard Shevardnadze and set Georgia on a new political
course. It was a time when political activists, funded and trained by
the Soros Foundation, fomented political upheavals in the former Soviet
republics with the avowed purpose of promoting democracy, but in fact,
were reorienting the policies of those countries towards the West.
The following year, Ukraine was “democratized” through the Orange
Revolution.
The US-trained Saakashvili placed his country in a path firmly heading
towards the West and NATO and in the process, he antagonized his
northern neighbor, Russia, to a point that in 2008, war broke out
between the two and Georgia lost two regions – Abkhazia and South
Ossetia – to Russia.
That full decade of rule was marked by mixed results – the economy was
developed, rule of law was established and corruption almost uprooted.
But the campaign, which had started to bring democracy to the country,
experimented with changes at the expense of harsh rules – excessive
cases of detentions, torture and this time corruption by the new
administration.
During the election campaign, Ivanishvili noted that tax collection
mechanisms became very efficient only to be able to misappropriate
the collected taxes.
Under Saakashvili, the Georgian government’s relations with Armenia
were very unfriendly – if not outright hostile. This Georgia always
voted against Armenia and with Azerbaijan at the UN, despite the fact
they are the only Christian nations in this Islamic ocean.
Saakashvili’s last hurrah was his speech at the UN last September,
making unsavory remarks about Armenia’s joining the Customs Union
with Russia. Saakashvili also conspired with Azerbaijan to isolate
Armenia in all regional developments – oil and gas lines were routed
through Georgia to deny Armenia access to those energy resources.
There were four main reasons that shaped the Georgian policy regarding
Armenia:
~U The Tbilisi government perceived Armenia as Russia’s vanguard in
the region.
~U Armenia, already blocked by two hostile neighbors – Turkey
and Georgia – would not react to Tbilisi’s actions in order not
to compromise a third border access with the world. Against all
provocations by Tbilisi, Armenia soft-pedaled its Georgian policy
~U The restive Armenian region in Javakhk would be agitating for
autonomy, therefore Armenia had to be punished for Javakhk’s political
aspirations and ~U Georgians have always been jealous of the Armenians
who built their capital, Tbilisi, and handed it over to them on a
silver platter.
Of course the 2008 war with Russia further complicated the relations
between the two nations. But a revolution, which had started with
roses, had begun to serve only thorns to the Georgian people, when Mr.
Ivanishvili came into the picture.
Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream Coalition soundly defeated Saakashvili’s
United National Movement Party last year, occupying a comfortable lead
in the parliament with 85 seats. That began a year of French-style
cohabitational politics, with a lame-duck president representing
the opposition and a prime minister and the parliament representing
the majority.
Although the West qualified the process as maturing democracy, the
president and the prime minister exchanged openly-bitter barbs with
each other until the October 27 presidential election, where Mr.
Ivanishvili’s handpicked candidate, Giorgi Margvelashvili, won 67
percent of the votes against David Bakradze’s 20 percent, while Nino
Burjanadze trailed in third place with 10 percent of the votes. She
was a former Saakashvili ally who had turned against him during the
2008 war with Russia, openly advocating a policy of rapprochement
with the Kremlin. Her 10-percent vote may also denote the measure of
Russia’s popularity in Georgia.
Georgia’s constitution was changed to leave a ceremonial role for the
president, except for being commander in chief of the armed forces,
concentrating all executive powers in the hands of the prime minister,
to be elected after Mr. Ivanishvili retires in 2014. The name of the
next prime minister still remains a myster.
The new president is a colorless academic with scant experience in
politics. He fits exactly Mr. Ivanishvili’s image of a leader. Indeed,
the billionaire politician vowed to eliminate from Georgian politics
the “superman” rulers, which Saakashvili tried to portray.
The NATO, PACE and EU representatives qualified the election as
transparent and fair. They all found the elections moving Georgia
towards a Euro-Atlantic sphere.
The leaders of the Georgian Dream Party plan to have a balanced
policy; while moving towards European integration, they will try to
mend fences with Moscow.
Western powers rushed to congratulate the victory of the new
president. As of this writing, no message was issued by the Kremlin.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wished that the new administration
would have an improved relation with Moscow.
Armenia has become a hostage to the hostility and the rivalry between
Moscow and Tbilisi. To measure the level of rancor and the grudge
harbored by the Georgian president, it suffices to read about the
exchange of insults between Mr. Saakashvili and Vahakn Chakhalian,
an Armenian activist in the Javakhk region, jailed by the government
for expressing autonomy aspirations for Javakhk Armenians.
During the presidential campaign, Saakashvili visited an Armenian
Church in Akhalkalak, where he faced Chakhalian. The latter said, “You
took four and a half years of my life.” Saakashvili called Chakhalian
and a few others “bandits,” “separatists” and “criminals.” He
boasted about having expelled the Russian military base from that
Armenian-populated province (which was providing security and jobs to
area Armenians) and he enforced the Georgian language to assimilate
the young generation, while forbidding the importation of textbooks
from Armenia.
Saakashvili’s policy was two-pronged: while assimilating the young
generation of Armenians, he impoverished the province to force many
Armenians to leave, which they did and he was able to quell the
autonomy aspirations.
Mr. Ivanishvili thus far has made contradictory statements about
Armenians in Georgia, since coming to power. But the majority of
the Armenians voted for his candidate, perhaps out of spite toward
Saakashvili’s policies, and also with the hope that some change could
be brought in to improve the economy of the province.
If and when relations normalize between Moscow and Tbilisi, transit
trade and movement of people and goods will be facilitated with the
outside world.
As far as confiscated Armenian Churches in Georgia and the tacit
discrimination against Armenians are concerned, only patience and
non-violent resistance will help.
Georgian presidential election promises positive changes for the
region, hopefully with some dividends also going to Armenia.
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