From wine making to “color” revolutions, Georgia has had many firsts - but will it now become the first country to allow a non-citizen to become prime minister?
This article was updated at 2:20am EST on October 4.
After a solid victory over President Mikheil Saakshvili’s United National Movement in Georgia’s October 1 parliamentary elections, billionaire
Bidzina Ivanishvili and his nine-party coalition may feel like they are living the Georgian Dream. But keeping the coalition together and governing effectively may prove a challenge.
Stunning parliamentary election results are sending Georgia into uncharted territory for a post-Soviet state: two relatively equally balanced political forces now must learn the art of legislative give-and-take.
For weeks, there have been fears of protests, civil disorder, even a Russian attack. But, in the end, October 1, the day of Georgia’s parliamentary elections, proved relatively quiet, held amid summer-like weather. Yet the broad discrepancy of exit poll numbers seemed sure to fuel controversy in the coming days and weeks.
Just days ahead of the country’s October 1 parliamentary vote, televised images of the brutal treatment of detainees at Georgia’s Prison No. 8 are stoking one of the most serious political crises ever encountered by President Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration. The scandal has quickly scrambled assumptions about the upcoming election.
A boy plays in a pile of corn husks on Sept. 16 during the first corn harvest of the season in Supsa, Georgia. Corn is a staple in western Georgia, where it is used to feed farm animals and prepare "mchadi," or corn bread, which is eaten at lunch and dinner.
Molly Corso is a freelance journalist who also works as editor of Investor.ge, a monthly publication by the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia.
Rooted in long-standing historical, religious and economic differences, Georgian animosity toward neighboring Turkey, Georgia’s fifth-largest investor, appears to be growing in the Black Sea region of Achara. Recently, politicians eager for votes in Georgia’s October 1 parliamentary elections have brought the sentiments to a steady boil.
As the South Caucasus state of Georgia gears up for parliamentary elections on October 1, Washington, DC, is proving to be a key theater of the political campaign.
A growing number of Georgians are turning to yoga to shake off the stress of daily life. But their quest for inner calm and smaller waists is generating hostility from the powerful Georgian Orthodox Church.
