Nearly a year into his presidential administration in Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili continues to tinker with his cabinet as he promotes his Westernization agenda. The most recent reshuffle, endorsed by parliament in late December, indicates that Saakashvili in 2005 will focus on overhauling Georgia's defense establishment and on sharply reducing the country's expansive bureaucracy.
Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania is scheduled November 5 to meet Eduard Kokoity, leader of the renegade region of South Ossetia, in an effort to ease tension that has simmered since last summer. Both sides believe chances for a breakthrough in the peace process are slim.
Officials in Georgia are concerned that rising tension in the breakaway region of Abkhazia may spill over into the neighboring regions of Samegrelo and Imereti, where Tbilisi is already struggling to promote order. Observers say the situation is exposing the underlying weakness of Georgia's regional political institutions.
Russia, post-Beslan, has gone on the hunt for culprits, and in its sights, many Georgian observers fear, lies Georgia. While talk of preemptive strikes against suspected terrorist bases in third countries rumbles out of the Kremlin, old complaints that terrorists roam the Pankisi Gorge, the narrow strip of land bordering Georgia and Chechnya, are being recirculated.
Officials in Georgia are bracing for a potentially rapid escalation of tension throughout the Caucasus following the Beslan hostage tragedy. Many Georgians, civilians and authorities alike, believe the Kremlin is capable of lashing out at Tbilisi as part of an attempt to relieve the Russian public's rage over the high death toll in Beslan.
A relative degree of calm may have returned to South Ossetia in recent weeks, but the ongoing rumblings from both Tbilisi and Moscow only emphasize the need for a new mechanism to hold the peace in this remote region.
The Republican Party's split with Georgia's ruling party emphasizes the National Movement bloc's transformation into guardians of the political status quo.
Against the backdrop of warming Georgian-Russian relations, South Ossetian leaders are struggling to resist the pressure being exerted on the separatist region by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Many observers in Tbilisi believe that popular support for South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoyev is shaky.
When Georgia's new parliament convenes April 22 its first order of business will be the Ajaria issue. Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze indicated that MPs will work on a measure to reintegrate the renegade region into Georgia's "constitutional space."
Ajaria is not Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's only political challenge these days. With parliamentary elections fast approaching, the Georgian government is using a carrot-and-stick approach to discourage tax evasion and corruption.
