An Official Russian View on Georgia's Political Past and Future

Few people expected such a dramatic denouement to Georgia's political crisis. Eduard Shevardnadze's resignation must have come as a surprise even to the longtime president himself. Only a day before he made his final decision, yielding to pressure from the opposition, Shevardnadze said publicly that he would not step down. But the threat of the standoff ending in bloodshed eventually made the 75-year-old veteran politician change his mind and leave the political arena, most probably for good.

It will be remembered that Shevardnadze entered the political spotlight in 1972, when he became the Communist Party boss in the then-Soviet republic of Georgia. He held that post through 1985. It was then that former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev promoted him to the Soviet Union's foreign minister.

Shevardnadze became one of Gorbachev's closest associates, helping the Soviet leader promote his perestroika reforms. He resigned as foreign minister in 1991 and stayed out of politics for a while. He got back into the public eye in 1992, after Zviad Gamsakhurdia, independent Georgia's first president, was forced from power amid civil warfare.

Shevardnadze then returned to his native Georgia to take charge of the State Council, the interim authority that governed the republic in the wake of Gamsakhurdia's death. Shevardnadze was elected as Georgian president in a popular vote on November 5, 1995, and won re-election for a second term five years afterward.

Georgia experienced harsh times during Shevardnadze's presidency. He was able to ensure neither political nor economic stability. And he failed to reestablish the territorial integrity of his country, as three autonomous regions – Abkhazia, Ajaria and South Ossetia – operated largely beyond Tbilisi's control. Abkhazia became sovereign de facto; South Ossetia announced its intention to break away; and Ajaria, previously loyal to Shevardnadze, steadily expanded its autonomy.

Shevardnadze's policies in the international arena proved equally ineffective. He took an openly anti-Russian course in the 1990s, although it was Moscow that had propelled him into the higher echelons of power. He turned a blind eye to Chechen rebels crossing from his country into Russia, despite concerns voiced repeatedly by the Russian government. He also began to work toward rapprochement with the West, hoping to secure US backing and to win NATO membership. But he lost his friendship with Moscow and failed to make friends with Washington. In the present crisis, the US Administration expressed support for the opposition's cause in Georgia, while accusing Shevardnadze of election fraud.

The Georgian opposition has now taken the upper hand over the embattled president. Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze, leader of the Burjanadze-Democrats bloc; ex-Speaker Zurab Zhvania; and National Movement leader Mikhail Saakashvili have assumed interim authority.

But the opposition's victory does not mean that the political crisis is over. Opposition leaders united against Shevardnadze as a common enemy, but now that he is gone, they may well split up again. This seems a likely possibility given that their political platforms and goals differ a lot, as do the interests of the groups each of them represents.

Such was the case in Armenia in the early 1990s, when the Armenian National Movement began to rule the country. Three of the movement's leaders — would-be President Levon Ter-Petrosyan and his closest associates Khachik Stamboltsyan and Vazgen Manukian — began quarrelling among themselves soon after winning power, only to end up as arch foes. One cannot rule out that this same scenario will repeat itself in Georgia. In any event, restoring a sense of normalcy to Tbilisi will be possible only by holding legitimate parliamentary and presidential polls.

It does not seem that any of the present opposition leaders enjoys enough popular support and authority to win the Georgian presidency. With all his shortcomings, Shevardnadze boasts vast civil-service experience, gained while working in senior government positions back in the Soviet era. Opposition leaders, by contrast, lack experience, although both Burjanadze and Zhvania served as parliament speakers and Saakashvili was at one point Georgia's justice minister.

It is unlikely that opposition leaders' ability to galvanize a mob, which they have so vividly demonstrated in the past few weeks, will come in handy as they try to govern.

The latest developments in Tbilisi will probably make Ajaria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia all the more wary of Georgia's central government. At recent demonstrations, ultra-national politicians accused Shevardnadze of indecisiveness, and of the inability to protect his country's integrity. They hinted that they might sanction the use of force to restore the country's territorial integrity.

Such pronouncements may push Georgia to the brink of civil war. Indicatively, the leader of Ajaria, Aslan Abashidze, has already announced his decision to temporarily close off the autonomy's borders.

Russia is deeply concerned about the situation in Georgia. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov's trip to Tbilisi prior to Shevardnadze's resignation November 23 attests to the fact. The Russian envoy met with the then incumbent Shevardnadze and with opposition leaders of Georgia, trying to mediate between the conflicting sides. As indeed, disintegration and turmoil are the least two things Moscow would want to see happen to its southern neighbor