Monday, January 05, 2004

MISHA THE PRESIDENT

So, Mikhail Sakaashvili looks certain to be the new President of Georgia. Not any big news there as it had become pretty clear that with other Opposition leaders standing aside, "Misha" was going to get a clear run. The official results won't be announced until 20 January.

Jonathan Steele in Saturday's Guardian sees the political upheaval in Georgia as part of a wider game - a new Cold War between the US and Russia, if you like. Steele argues that the US had a big part to play in former President Shevardnadze's downfall. The threat of civil war and Shevardnadze's links with Russia tipped the balance in US eyes.

I'm not so sure.

Shevardnadze had always been seen as a friend of the west. He was, after all, Gorbachev's foreign minister as the Soviet Union gradually unwound and effectively surrendered in the Cold War. Here was man that the west could trust as leader of the newly freed Georgia. In retrospect, Shevardnadze never stood a chance. The unravelling of the Soviet Union left in its wake the new economic elite - some might call them criminals. At the same time, this small nation was wreaked by civil war in the early 1990s. Shevardnadze was a hero for ending the conflict. But, having dealt with the breakaway regions (although unsuccessfully), he was not able to halt the rampant corruption and was never able to ensure that the rule of law applied.

A vast proportion of the people had had enough of the corruption, the ever spiralling poverty and the lack of law and order. It was people power at its greatest.

But , the main opposition, as represented by Sakaashvili, Burjanadze and others are not necessarily pro-western or pro-US. True, they want Georgia to regain respect in the international community. Painting Shevardnadze as too close to Russia and Sakaashvili as a man with which the US can do business may be too simplistic.

Anyway, as Mary Neal says: "Misha will be the new president now. He's cute enough, I guess, in a puchlinky kind of way ... i.e. "full of cute baby fat"."

:: Posted by pete @ 22:16