WASHINGTON, 27 February 2004 — President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia is now in Washington in celebration of November’s “rose revolution,’’ which led to the resignation of longtime Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze. Some, believing that Saakashvili needs time and US support to implement democratic reforms, will urge President Bush and other US officials to avoid touching on issues that are of concern to the democratic community both in Georgia and abroad. Following this advice would be disastrous for both US and Georgian interests.
Being critical of the new government does not mean one is opposed to Georgia’s becoming a success story. In fact, those who want Georgia to succeed can justify criticism of the country’s new president on the grounds that if real problems are ignored, they will only become more difficult and will harm both Georgian and US interests.
Washington needs to pay attention now, while the new leadership in Tbilisi is finding its way, to ensure that it gets on the right path to democracy — and stays there. Specifically, there are four areas where the Bush administration should press Saakashvili to explain his government’s actions.
First, US officials ought to inquire why Saakashvili proposed and rushed through Parliament constitutional amendments that eliminated a republican-style balance between the executive and legislative branches and created a superpresidential system modeled on Russia’s. These changes empower the Georgian president to claim permanent dominance over every branch of government. The amendments are particularly worrisome because they were conceived in secret and were bitterly opposed by the same civil society leaders who helped organize November’s revolution.
Second, US officials ought to caution Saakashvili against pressuring the media. Without three privately owned TV stations, that gave revolutionary leaders a platform from which to speak to the people, November’s street protests would not have taken such massive form. This month, two of these channels unexpectedly canceled talk shows featuring political debate. Because both had high ratings, it seems unlikely that they were killed for financial reasons. For most Georgian journalists, the apparent attempt by the new government to seek to control what is said on TV is something new and dangerously reminiscent of Russia.
Third, Saakashvili needs to explain his government’s policies on property rights. Parliament recently removed the statute of limitations on privatization, allowing the government to renationalize the largest private enterprises simply because these businesses might be built on improper forms of privatization from a decade ago. This proposal threatens thousands of good jobs and millions of dollars of totally legitimate investments that numerous innocent Georgians and foreigners have poured into businesses since privatization.
Fourth, Washington should push Saakashvili to commit to a democratic vote in parliamentary elections set for next month. Saakashvili controls the electoral administration, just as Shevardnadze did. Lack of impartiality in the commissions was the main reason people did not trust the outcome of November’s elections. Calls from nongovernmental parties and the civil society for a fairer makeup of the commissions have been ignored, even though Saakashvili and many members of the current opposition used to fight together for the same parity-based proposal in the past. Democracy in Georgia requires not only a governing democratic political force but also a strong democratic opposition party. There are opposition leaders who can bring this about, but only if elections are fair.
These negative developments are coupled with positive moves. Some of the executive appointments have been good. Elimination of a number of ministries and a cut in the size of the bureaucratic apparatus are essential. Every citizen welcomes a decline in petty bribery. Arrests of corrupt officials should continue, though the focus of investigations now seems a little too narrow, and innocent people are being held for political reasons. As well, the government said it plans to triple defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product; few would criticize this proposal.
All in all, the jury is still out on whether November’s revolution will lead to real democracy in Georgia. Washington can help by ensuring that Saakashvili will be unable to act on some of his authoritarian instincts and pursue what appear to him to be easy solutions to difficult problems with damaging long-term implications. The Bush administration must deliver a strong message to him about the need to follow through on reform and democracy.
— Irakly Areshidze, a political analyst specializing in Georgian-US relations, is based in Washington and Tbilisi. He was a strategy consultant to Georgia’s New Rights Party, in last year’s elections.
