Political Forum: 10 Questions on Georgia's Political Development

1 The Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development Political Forum: 10 Questions on Georgia’s Political Development Tbilisi 2007 2 General editing Ghia Nodia English translation Kakhaber Dvalidze Language editing John Horan © CIPDD, November 2007. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing from the proprietor. CIPDD welcomes the utilization and dissemination of the material included in this publication. This book was published with the financial support of the regional Think Tank Fund, part of Open Society Institute Budapest. The opinions it con- tains are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect the position of the OSI. ISBN 978-99928-37-08-5 1 M. Aleksidze St., Tbilisi 0193 Georgia Tel: 334081; Fax: 334163 www.cipdd.org 3 Contents Foreword ................................................................................................ 5 Archil Abashidze .................................................................................. 8 David Aprasidze .................................................................................21 David Darchiashvili............................................................................ 33 Levan Gigineishvili ............................................................................ 50 Kakha Katsitadze ...............................................................................67 George Khelashvili .............................................................................80 Nodar Ladaria .................................................................................... 94 David Losaberidze ...........................................................................103 Nani Macharashvili .......................................................................... 118 Ghia Nodia .......................................................................................152 Malkhaz Saldadze ............................................................................ 181 Levan Tarkhnishvili .........................................................................192 Gigi Tevzadze .................................................................................... 208 Koba Turmanidze .............................................................................218 Avto Jokhadze .................................................................................. 236 Giga Zedania .................................................................................... 255 Georgia after communism 1989-2006: Timeline.........................263 4 5 Foreword The new Georgian state is approximately 15 years old - depending on what is considered the moment of its inception. There have been three changes of government in Georgia during this period, two of which were unconstitutional. All three times the changes were claimed to have been made in the name of revolutionary transformation and the establishment of a dramatically different political system. The latest change of government, the Rose Revolution, took place in 2003. Enough time has passed since then to draw some general conclusions on what the main characteristics of Georgia’s political evolution and political system are, how they can be categorized in terms of the fundamental notions of political science and what trends of political system development have become discernible. Despite heated political debate, these issues have not been raised so broadly yet – or at any rate, no professional discussion on these issues has taken place. The Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development, together with the Ilia Chavchavadze State Univer- sity, came forward with the initiative to launch a discussion of this nature. In order to make the discourse more structured, we asked its participants to supply answers to 10 questions. The initial versions of the answers were discussed at the authors’ conference on December 8-9, 2006, but they had the opportunity to edit the draft texts afterwards. Assessments in the book reflect the period before January 2007 – events that happened afterwards could not influence the views of the authors. The submitted texts vary considerably both in volume and content. Some of the authors supplied relatively brief answers to the 10 questions asked, whereas others did not directly follow the proposed format and turned in comprehensive analytical articles on the topics at hand. At any rate, we hope that the material below will be of 5 Foreword interest to readers. It is an attempt at a more-or-less systematic assessment of Georgia’s recent history by a diverse group of people. Below is the list of the 10 questions we asked. In the texts of the authors who answered the questions in this order, only the item number of the question is supplied as the chapter title; otherwise, we have kept the author’s headlines. 1. What has Georgia achieved and what has it failed to achieve following the restoration of its national sovereignty? How, if at all, did Georgian society and culture change during this period? Which social or cultural factors (changes) had the greatest effect on political processes? 2. Please provide a brief assessment of Zviad Gamsakhurdia’s presidency. How would you formulate his political program (views)? What were his main achievement and his main failure? If the political regime of that period can be categorized, what innovations did it introduce compared to the preceding regime? What was the main reason for the toppling of his regime (the “Christmas coup” or the popular uprising of 1991-1992)? 3. Please provide a brief assessment of Eduard Shevardnadze’s presidency. How would you formulate his political program (views)? What were his main achievement and his main failure? If the political regime of that period can be categorized, what innovations did it introduce compared to the previous regime? What was the main reason for the toppling of his regime (“Rose Revolution”)? 4. Please provide a brief assessment of Mikheil Saakashvili’s presidency: How would you formulate his political program (views)? What are his main success(es) and failure(s)? If the current political regime can be categorized, what innovations has it intro- duced compared to the previous regime? 5. The opposition is objectively unable to compete with the authori- ties. What is the main reason for this (repressions by the authori- ties, the government’s obvious successes, lack of charismatic opposition leaders, objective systemic problems, something else)? 6 10 questions on Georgia’s political development 6. If the opposition gains strength in the future, what will be the likely values/slogans/messages that will account for this (supremacy of law and human rights, protection of social rights, preservation of ethnic identity, tackling of corruption, etc.)? 7. What will form the structural framework for the stronger opposition of the future – the opposition parties of today or completely new groups? If you deem the latter option more probable, where will those new groups come from (from the ruling party after a rift, from some social stratum which has hitherto not been a major player in the political arena, from somewhere else)? 8. How stable is Georgia’s current political system? What is the outlook for the development of the political system in Georgia in your opinion (establishment of a Mexican- or Japanese-style system with a single dominant party, gradual development of liberal- democratic pluralism, Latin American-style perpetual revolutionary cycles)? 9. How important is the influence of foreign political factors on Georgia’s political evolution? Please specify how exactly this influence has manifested/manifests itself. How has this influence been changing over the past 15 years and what types of influence do you expect in the near future (next 3-5 years)? 10. Assuming that Georgia has the government which is most accept- able for you, what should be the priorities of its political program and what are the most important steps it should take? 7 8 Archil Abashidze 1. So many major changes had to be implemented in Georgia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union that expecting any great achieve- ments in a short time would have been extremely unrealistic. A completely different political and economic system was (and is) to be established, which takes quite a lot of time, especially in a society with an underdeveloped political culture. The first thing to be noted with regret looking back at the last 15 years is that Georgia suc- cumbed to provocation and failed to unite around the idea of building its statehood. The political leaders of that period proved unable to put national interests above their own personal ambitions. They failed to rebuild the state institutions (old institutions were demolished, and they did not create new ones) at least to the extent that would prevent the country from falling into the hands of criminal “brotherhoods” – first armed gangs and later corrupt clans. One might say that we had to learn from the many mistakes which could have been avoided. (The example of the civil war would suffice.) Progress and development were out of the question amid the blazing conflicts and civic strife in the country. Besides lost territories and thousands of victims, the conflicts set the country back several years – years which society should have been using to formulate the idea of the

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