Stocks Up, Value Down for Saakashvili
The Price of the Question
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili publicly declared himself winner of the January 5 election way before the start of the campaign and said that he was stepping down only to occupy the presidential office for the second time. And it seems that Mr. Saakashvili is right. He has got far more chances to win than his rivals. But even if Mikhail Saakashvili becomes the president for the second time, he has already lost a lot because the price of the victory will be too high.
Mr. Saakashivil would have likely won the January 5 election even if he had not taken recent quite controversial steps to boost his authority. The passion of the Rose Revolution has not been disappeared yet. Some things have changed for the better since the Shevarnadze era. Tbilisi has become one of the West’s dearest partners, the CIS’s champion in securing American aid and number one candidate to enter the NATO. All of these things plus Mikhail Saakashvili’s administrative resource were making his win at the election almost inevitable.
But the Georgian president must have decided to do away with all uncertainties and started to strengthen his tight grip on power. First, he pushed out his main rival, former defense minister Irakly Okruashvili, out of the country by dubious methods. Later, prosecutors helped him to kibosh a political career of the country’s richest (and, consequently, most independent from authorities) man Badri Patarkatsishvili who was also labeled the Kremlin’s spy by state-controlled media. Then the president sanctioned to stifle an opposition rally, crush and ban the main independent TV channel Imedi. He ordered the emergency rule (even if for a short time) outlawing any protest actions. Finally, he made a great contribution to the powerful anti-Russian wave which has swept Georgia equating all criticism of authorities to Russian propaganda.
These measures may have helped Mikhail Saakashvili to boost his power. Now his result in the election will be higher and more convincing. But the cost of this triumph may turn out to be too high for the president to celebrate.
The moves to tighten his grip on power compromised him and the Rose Revolution itself. It happened not only in Georgia but abroad as well. It was actually the first time in Mr. Saakashvili’s rule that the West pulled him up and asked not to go far with authoritarian ways. Meanwhile, Europe has started eyeing former Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvil as a possible alternative to the incumbent president.
I’m not sure that 70 or 80 percent of the vote is worth this.
Gennady Sysoev, columnist
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 26, 2007
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