For a small country located in a very tough neighborhood, Georgia has not received lots of attention since 2008, when Russia invaded the country and declared South Ossetia and Abkhazia independent. And with the world’s attention focused elsewhere (elections in the U.S., the humanitarian disaster in Syria, the challenge of Iran), many might have missed an extremely important development within the past two weeks—namely, Georgia’s parliamentary elections, in which President Mikhail Saakashvili’s party not only suffered defeat but readily accepted the results.
The implications of this election cannot be underestimated. Through this election and pending peaceful transfer of power, Georgia has made several great strides toward establishing democracy and the rule of law in the most precarious of situations inside what the Kremlin still sees as its “sphere of interest.” Indeed, what happened in Georgia stands to become a role model for Eurasia.
Both Russia and the West deem Georgia important, albeit sometimes for different reasons. It serves as an energy transit corridor for Azerbaijani oil and gas, an interest Russia and the West share. But on the issue of integration with the West, Moscow and the West differ sharply. Under Saakashvili, Georgia has aggressively pursued closer ties to, and eventual membership in, NATO. The 2008 war with Russia brought Russia’s relations with the West to their most trying point since the break-up of the USSR. And the color revolutions, which began with the Rose version in Georgia in 2003, heightened the Kremlin’s paranoia that a similar uprising was being planned for Russia, too. That’s a lot of high-profile attention for a country of less than four million people.
Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) party not only lost the elections to the Georgia Dream party; it got clobbered, losing by some 15 percent. A constitutional realignment of power in Georgia that shifts greater power to the Prime Minister and parliament had fed speculation that Saakashvili would switch jobs and “do a Putin” (that is, move to the strengthened premiership after the elections). The election results made that impossible, however, and instead billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili will become the new Prime Minister of the country. This peaceful transfer of power and Saakashvili’s almost immediate acceptance of the results confounded polls and expectations.
In the Eurasia region, only Ukraine, in early 2010, has had a similarly peaceful transfer of power, but local elections in October of that year, and the ones for parliament on October 28, have raised serious concerns that Ukraine’s streak of decent elections is a thing of the past. That makes what happened in Georgia even more impressive.
Georgia offers both proof of certain axioms as well as unpredictability. Let’s start with the former. The defeat of Saakashvili and the other victors of the 2003 Rose Revolution confirms the axioms established by previous transitions: Liberal technocrats are doomed to leave power after they finish painful structural reforms that trigger frustration and unhappiness among their societies. This has been the destiny of almost all East and Central European (post-communist) reformist governments. Technocrats usually don’t pay much attention to institutions. They are absorbed by building a liberal economy and afraid of democracy and populism, even relying on an authoritarian leader. No wonder they provoke resentment among two different segments of society: those who want political freedom and democracy, on the one hand, and those who want justice, on the other.
Georgia’s election proves another axiom, too: the more radical technocrats are, the bigger the pain of transformation, but the shorter its duration. The longer and more indecisive are reforms, the more drawn out is the pain and the lower the chances of success, as with Yegor Gaidar’s reforms in Russia.
Just as the Orange Revolution is a distant memory in Ukraine, the Rose Revolution in Georgia is now over. In both countries, we see the rise of oligarchs; in Georgia, it is Ivanishvili’s rise to power. This begs a question: Why do poor societies with a strong ethos of justice and equality elect oligarchs to positions of power? How will such individuals govern, and what will their moral and political principles be? In Ukraine, the oligarchs have proven that personal enrichment and preservation top any notion of national interests. Will Ivanishvili be any different?
For Saakashvili, following Putin’s or Lukashenko’s path by ignoring the results or rigging the election was not an option. Instead, he pursued a rational mode of behavior that leaves open the possibility of his return some day, should society sour on the new team. “He [Saakashvili] will cling to power,” Putin predicted before the election, projecting his own determination to stay in the Kremlin onto his Georgian nemesis. Indeed, for Putin the notion of surrendering power voluntarily after an election is so alien as to be incomprehensible, if not suicidal.
Saakashvili’s acceptance of defeat could become his greatest achievement. And yet in Moscow, quite a few Russian liberals blamed the Georgian President for abiding by the voters’ democratic verdict. “Georgia proved that people without property can’t be allowed to vote!” lamented the Russian adherents of the liberal Pinochetism. Yet history proves that it is better to go through such a defeat than to achieve “victory” through a crackdown.
In retrospect, Saakashvili was both lucky and unlucky. He was lucky to have secured support for Georgia from the West, especially the United States. Yet he was unlucky in that, for several years after coming to power, he faced no real, constructive opposition, nor did he fully appreciate the benefits of such an opposition. This demonstrated yet another axiom: Without a real opposition, the regime was prone to overplaying its hand and making mistakes.
Now for the unpredictability. The new Georgian Prime Minister is relatively unknown and inexperienced politically. Will Ivanishvili move in an authoritarian or populist direction? Witness his early call for Saakashvili to resign as President, followed by a quick retraction of said call. Whereas Saakashvili is all charm and charisma, Ivanishvili is an enigma: We don’t know how to score his real goals, agenda, or ability to govern. Is he beholden to Russia and the Kremlin, or his own agent? This uncertainty feeds suspicions: The name of his movement, Georgian Dream, sounds awfully Soviet and Marxist. It was Communist tradition to consolidate people on the basis of a dream. Moreover, dreams risk turning into disappointment, even nightmare. Besides, this movement is a temporary mix of various groups with conflicting and incompatible interests, united largely by their antipathy toward the current regime. What was it about Saakashvili’s rule that spawned the emergence of such a strange opposition? How unhappy or irritated were Georgians to vote for a party with a vague dream but no clear agenda? (These are bitter questions for Saakashvili and his technocrats to ponder.)
Another area of unpredictability looms. The two sides will have one year of the French model of government—that is, cohabitation of the powerful parliament with the less powerful presidency, until presidential elections a year from now. As election winners seek to build their rule and define their policies, the losers will remain in the presidency while getting accustomed to becoming the new opposition. All bets are off during this cohabitation period, including a tug of war between the competing sides or attempts by the new leaders to monopolize power—or possibly just gridlock. Nonetheless, the way Georgians behaved during the elections holds promise that the country will move peacefully toward a parliamentary system. Some countries (Slovakia under Vladimir Meciar, Viktor Orban’s Hungary) have shown that the Prime Minister in such systems can act on authoritarian inclinations. But in the Eurasia region, in a departure from Soviet and post-Soviet tradition, Georgia will be one of the first (after Moldova and more uneasily Kyrgyzstan) to begin this experiment. Georgia’s neighbors will be taking note of what happens.
Of course, Georgia begins its experiment in a complicated and unfriendly international atmosphere. Europe is dealing with its own crisis, and the United States has reduced its previous interest in Tbilisi while focusing more on Russia. The Kremlin, meanwhile, is becoming more assertive as it seeks to justify its increasingly repressive domestic trends, following the Russian tradition: When the authorities fear their power weakening, they look for external threats and objects for bullying. Georgia is the perfect target for macho posturing.
The last area of unpredictability involves the balancing act for the new Georgian leader in preserving Georgia’s pro-Western trajectory while improving ties with Moscow. But here is the trap: For the Kremlin, any dialogue means concessions, as we have seen with Russia’s pressure on Ukraine. Putin’s Kremlin will want Georgia to return to Russia’s embrace. Will Ivanishvili be able to resist such pressure? Yanukovich has not succeeded and has even antagonized the West. Increasingly, he is left at the mercy of Putin’s whims. With interest in Georgia flagging in the West, this balance will be even harder to strike for Ivanishvili.
These unpredictable areas notwithstanding, Georgia has opened a new chapter, but its new leaders and soon-to-be new opposition must prove that they know that democracy entails working for the greater good. Given their location and size, they can afford nothing short of coming together as a nation. Everyone in the region will be watching, some hoping for failure while others pray for success. Georgia will need patience, understanding and assistance from the West, because its largest neighbor to the north will be working to undermine it.
