CIVIL SOCIETY
5/15/09
A EurasiaNet Photo Story by Molly Corso
Kiosk owner Dali Maghlabeli makes just two lari per day - a little over $1 - from the snacks and inflatable balls displayed in her tin hut on Georgia’s main East-West highway. For Georgia’s assertive opposition, people like Maghlabeli are targets of opportunity. But so far, Maghlabeli and others from the ranks of Georgia’s impoverished have shunned opposition efforts to recruit them for the campaign to force President Mikheil Saakashvili from power.
Since April 9, when daily protests began, opposition leaders have pledged to bring in disgruntled citizens from Georgia’s poverty-stricken regions to Tbilisi, hoping that such an influx would put Saakashvili on the defensive. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
But while a few regional demonstrators have joined the makeshift prison "cells" set out on Tbilisi’s main Rustaveli Avenue, the number of protesters has not swelled significantly. It turns out that many Georgians are preoccupied with merely trying to scrape by, and thus have neither the time nor inclination to protest their impoverished conditions. The opposition’s entreaties for Georgians outside Tbilisi to join in a mass protest against Saakashvili are falling on deaf ears. Poverty has not translated into political action.
"I couldn’t go [to the protest]," said Maghlabeli, an accountant by training. "I am not that sort of person. I just want one thing -- work. This [kiosk] is nothing."
Villagers interviewed by EurasiaNet in three different Georgian regions - Guria, Imereti and Shida Kartli - echo that view. Earning a living, they say, matters more to them than whether Saakashvili stays or goes.
That’s not to say that a large percentage of Georgia’s population is unhappy. In the village of Lesa, a picturesque hamlet in Guria near the Black Sea, little has changed since the 2003 Rose Revolution. Large potholes make driving along the village’s main road hazardous, and livestock graze lazily in the stadium. "What has Saakashvili done for Guria?" one local asked angrily. "Nothing."
The perceived danger of losing local jobs in local government bodies, schools and hospitals is helping to keep villagers away from the protests, said a local, who also asked not to be named for fear of losing her job.
Against that fear, even lingering anger about the 2008 war against Russia pales. At an abandoned highway market not far from Gori, a key regional town that was occupied by Russian troops, Mzia Gigauri told EurasiaNet that the community’s "big problem" was finding employment for young people. "The government helps with some things, but that is the main thing. It is a big problem ... our young people don’t work," Gigauri said.
Another factor that is dampening interest in protests is widespread skepticism about the opposition’s ability to tackle existing problems. As they have mounted attacks on Saakashvili’s policies, opposition leaders have not proffered any remedies of their own.
Those Georgians in the countryside who do travel to Tbilisi these days tend to do so seeking to achieve economic ends, and not get involved in the political tussle.
According to the latest government figures available, official unemployment stood at 13.3 percent in 2007. Gross Domestic Product per capita in 2008, according to the state statistics department, was roughly $3,000.
In a bid to boost employment, a government credit program will offer 20 million lari (about $12.08 million) this year to small and medium-sized businesses.
Meanwhile, kiosk owner Maghlabeli, already denied a loan by one private bank, sits and waits for better times. She may not have enough income to be satisfied with the current government, but she likewise lacks sufficient reason to head to Tbilisi to rally for change.
Editor's Note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter and photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
