With two weeks to go before Georgia's parliamentary elections, there are growing signs that opposition groups have lost confidence in the international community's ability to encourage a free-and-fair vote.
Two years into the US government-funded Millennium Challenge Georgia program, observers are concerned that major delays and cost adjustments could prevent the development program from achieving one of its most ambitious goals.
Georgian officials are denouncing Russia's unilateral action to reinforce its peacekeeping contingent in the separatist territory of Abkhazia, describing Moscow's move is the start of the region's "military annexation." While Russia claims that the additional forces are allowed under an earlier agreement with Georgia, Tbilisi maintains the buildup is "illegal."
Georgian politicians and pundits remain divided over the impact of Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burjanadze's April 21 withdrawal from Georgia's upcoming parliamentary elections. While some analysts question whether her decision will influence the governing United National Movement's standing in the polls, some opposition groups are trying to seize a political opportunity.
Georgian politicians and pundits remain divided over the impact of Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burjanadze's April 21 withdrawal from Georgia's upcoming parliamentary elections. While some analysts question whether her decision will influence the governing United National Movement's standing in the polls, some opposition groups are trying to seize a political opportunity.
Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burjanadze, a leader of the 2003 Rose Revolution, shocked Georgia's political world with an April 21 announcement that she will not run for reelection in the upcoming May legislative elections. Burjanadze's apparent exit from the political stage comes amid heightened public distrust in the election process.
Georgian officials are weighing a response to an April 16 edict from the Kremlin, under which Russia can establish official cooperation with the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. While Tbilisi has termed the move an attempt at "annexation," some local analysts question the actual impact of Moscow's actions.
With less than two months to go before Georgia's parliamentary elections, attention is focusing on whether or not President Mikheil Saakashvili's governing party will opt to change its "face" to keep its majority in parliament. With four prominent business executives tapped to represent the party at the polls, some observers believe that a makeover is already in the works.
Georgian opposition leaders have ended a 17-day hunger strike without gaining the political concessions they sought from President Mikheil Saakashvili's administration.
Nearly two weeks after the Russian government announced the unilateral lifting of a trade embargo against the separatist region of Abkhazia, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is trying to outmaneuver Moscow by building international support for an overhaul of the Abkhaz peace process.
