Rose Revolution Loses Key Backers

As the anniversary approaches of the overthrow of Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze by current leader Mikheil Saakashvili, critics are for the first time questioning the democratic values of his government.

In a recent open letter published in a local newspaper, a group of 14 prominent journalists, legal experts and analysts said Saakashvili was betraying his own declared principles by squeezing all forms of opposition or alternative opinion.

“Intolerance towards people with different opinions is being implanted in Georgian politics and in other areas of public life,” read the letter. The civic leaders accused Saakashvili of making “humiliating and insulting” statements toward his political opponents and displaying an ignorance of human rights.

“Attempts to establish an intellectual dictatorship and mono-opinion will lead the country not to swift reforms, but to authoritarian rule and stagnation,” read the appeal.

The outburst was a rarity in a country where Saakashvili, who led demonstrations that eventually swept Shevardnadze from power on November 23 last year, is still widely admired for his fight against corruption, and his promises to restore control over all Georgia’s territory and revive its devastated economy.

David Zurabishvili, chairman of the parliamentary majority and a leader of the ruling National Movement party, says the government has a long list of achievements to its credit, including the restoration of order in Ajaria, improvements in the armed forces, efforts to start paying foreign debt, a crackdown on smuggling and the removal of especially corrupt political figures.

However, some leaders of non-government organisations, NGOs, journalists, and other civil society activists who were Saakashvili’s biggest supporters during the so-called “Rose Revolution” are turning into a new opposition.

“The time has come to stop the revolution, to finish it,” Levan Berdzenishvili, a parliamentary deputy who is crossing over from Saakashvili to the parliamentary opposition Republican Party, told IWPR. “Continuing the revolution threatens democracy.”

Zurabishvili said he could see how some people might feel the government had got its priorities wrong, concentrating on headline-grabbing issues such as Georgia’s territorial conflicts and shoring up the centre’s political powers.

“People were expecting solutions to social problems more than anything else. The government, you could say, went off track and made restoring territorial integrity and increasing its own powers the priority,” he said.

In the case of Ajaria, where the autocratic local leader Aslan Abashidze was ousted last spring, the government was right, Zurabishvili said. Restoring control over this Black Sea region, home to the port of Batumi and part of the Georgian-Turkish border, was crucial to the country’s economic development. For years, Abashidze had refused to contribute to the federal budget.

Many analysts, though, believe that the government squandered some of the success of the Ajarian experience in a botched attempt to apply similar pressure to the separatist authorities in South Ossetia, a breakaway region on the Georgian-Russian border. The low-level fighting that broke out this summer between Georgian troops and South Ossetian forces revived the old image of Georgia as an instable country.

On economic matters, the government argues that it has taken a radical step in adopting a new tax code, which slashes some 20 taxes. The law has passed the first of three parliamentary hearings.

The government is also proud that 2004 was the first year since Georgia became an independent state 13 years ago that its budget has posted a surplus. Officially, one of the main reasons for this improved in tax collection. But another major factor in the rise in revenues is the fines worth tens of millions of laris paid by former high-ranking officials and businessmen detained in the government’s anti-corruption drive – a procedure, according to Saakashvili’s critics from NGOs and human rights groups, that has no legal basis or proper accounting.

Niko Orvelashvili, director of the Institute of Economic Development in Tbilisi, says there is still no overall economic strategy.

“There has been no revolution in the government’s economic thinking. There has been no change in approach. The main role of financial and economic policy is still to fill the government budget, not to help people develop economic activity,” he said. “No one is arguing about the liberal content of the changes [to the tax code], but there are doubts about the administrative side of these liberal laws, which give the fiscal organs enormous power with regard to companies.”

The methods used to pursue the anti-corruption drive, which has seen the arrest of policemen, local government heads, judges, and one parliamentary deputy, have come in for particular criticism from some activists.

According to Berdzenishvili, the courts simply complied with the government’s wishes and lost the already low levels of respect they had among the public,

However, Giga Bokeria, another National Movement leader, insisted that arrests for alleged corruption must continue, particularly within what he said was a still corrupt government bureaucracy. Fear of arrest is the government’s main weapon, he said.

Levan Ramishvili, at the Liberty Institute, said there were still loopholes which could allow wrongdoers from the Shevardnadze era to escape, tainting the reputation of the current authorities.

For example, the proposed partial amnesty for tax arrears, in which those in breach would only have to pay one per cent of their wealth, could benefit the very rich, rather than the average businessman. If former high-ranking officials are not excluded from this deal, Ramishvili believes “it means that we are proposing not an amnesty, but a law on amnesia, and that the government is implicated in corruption. If corruption is legalised, investments will not increase.”

Even the founding principle behind this government – battling for democratic rights – is failing to meet expectations, critics say.

The parliament passed a media law in June that strengthened rights for journalists by placing the burden of proof on public figures in libel cases. However, critics say that in reality the Georgian media has become weaker than under Shevardnadze.

Berdzenishvili described television channels - by far the most influential form of media here – as “dead media”. Ghia Nodia, of the Caucasian Institute for Peace, Development and Democracy, said that Georgia’s television stations are used by powerful businessmen not for financial profit, but to gain access to government.

He singled out the pro-government stance of Rustavi-2 television – a station that was once in strong opposition to Shevardnadze and has been credited with making the “Rose Revolution” possible – as indicative of the general trend. This summer, Kibar Khalvashi, a former business partner of interior minister Irakli Okruashvili, became the new owner of Rustavi-2

The regional television station in Ajaria is now the subject of a bitter dispute, following a wave of sackings there on November 1. According to Jumber Tavartkiladze, coordinator of the Batumi-based Union of Unity of Georgia, the net result is a restriction of media freedom in Ajaria, because the dismissed reporters had joined the station under Saakashvili and had sought to provide objective coverage.

The journalists told a press conference that they were planning to challenge their dismissals in the courts. The lawsuits promise trouble in a place previously regarded as a success story for Saakashvili.

David Paitchadze is a correspondent for Radio Liberty in Tbilisi.