Tbilisi
It’s hard building a house when your neighbor has annexed the front lawn. Since November 2003, when the Rose Revolution brought Mikhail Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) to power, the Republic of Georgia has been trying to build a modern liberal democracy in the middle of the Caucasus. It hasn’t been easy—thanks mainly to the influence of Russia, which even invaded Georgia in August 2008. Today, almost two years after that war, Vladimir Putin’s troops still occupy the provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in contravention of international law. The Russians control more than 20 percent of the country. They have about 10,000 soldiers and FSB agents in the occupied territories. Their forces are only 30 miles from the Georgian capital. They could crush the independence and democratic aspirations of 4.6 million Georgians in a matter of hours.
Yet none of that seemed to matter on May 27, as Tbilisi mayor Giorgi Ugulava stood in the hot sun outside the Kopala hotel. The Kopala, situated on a hilltop overlooking the old city, is one of Tbilisi’s most fashionable spots, and its owners had invited the 34-year-old Ugulava to help them celebrate the opening of a new wing. It was a typical photo-op: a glad-handing politician, a crowd of local actors, businessmen, and other V.I.P.s, half a dozen TV cameramen, and a slightly anxious proprietor who barked “Ashi! Ashi!” whenever he wanted the crowd to applaud.
A handler carried a pillow, on which sat a pair of scissors. The mayor cut the red ribbon hanging over the entrance to the hotel, everyone cheered, and the gaggle took a tour of the facility. Then they broke for lunch. It was one of the quickest, most painless campaign events I’ve ever covered. Not bad for a democracy that hasn’t yet reached its seventh birthday.
A few days later, on May 30, Ugulava beat eight rivals to win a second term. A member of Saakashvili’s UNM, Ugulava took 55 percent of the vote. It was the first time the mayor of Tbilisi had been directly elected. But that wasn’t what made the campaign special. What made it special was that Ugulava had done something new in Georgian politics. He had run on his record. As recently as 2004, there were only two hours of electricity in Tbilisi per day, crime was rampant, and the police were often no better than the crooks. Now the city has power at all times. It’s safe. The roads are paved. Street life bustles. The place is filled with restaurants and casinos. As you walk around Tbilisi, you’re reminded that economic progress and democratic governance go hand in hand.
This was the theme of municipal elections throughout the country. In the days before May 30, international observers flooded Georgia to observe 14 political parties and 3 political blocs participate in 64 municipal council elections, spread over 73 election districts, divided into 3,624 precincts. Saakashvili’s party was the big winner. But the larger story was that the elections proceeded peacefully and fairly. In a preliminary report, the OSCE observer delegation said the elections “marked evident progress” in Georgia’s political, social, and economic development.
These elections appear to signal that Saakashvili’s reforms are taking root. Georgia wants to join Western institutions such as NATO and the EU. But it first must demonstrate that it can function as a Western-oriented nation-state. This is easier said than done. Since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, all political change in Georgia has been driven by street protest. In 1992, armed clashes brought down the government of nationalist Zviad Gamsakhurdia and resulted in civil war. In 2003, the Rose Revolution demonstrations outside the parliament brought down the government of Gamsakhurdia’s successor, Eduard Shevardnadze. In November 2007, street confrontations forced Saakashvili to call early elections.
When Saakashvili was reelected in 2008, part of the opposition refused to recognize the result. They launched another round of protests in April 2009. Those demonstrations lasted several months, but they ended in failure. The opposition splintered, and the “Georgian Street” has been relatively quiet ever since. “Standing in the street outside parliament is no longer enough to deliver change,” says a high-ranking member of the government. Slowly, participation in the electoral process is becoming the only legitimate option.
It’s a cliché to say that a country stands at a crossroads. But in Georgia’s case the cliché happens to be true. This ancient nation, with a unique alphabet and culture, has withstood invasion and subjugation by Turks, Persians, Mongols, and Russians traversing the Eurasian landmass. It has its independence for only the second time in 200 years and wants to align itself with the West. The government has reformed its economic and political structures. The banner of the Council of Europe flies alongside the Georgian flag outside government buildings. About 1,000 Georgian soldiers are serving in Afghanistan.
The trouble is that Georgia is taking these steps just as the Western powers are beset by financial crises, split over the purpose of NATO, and cowed by a resurgent, belligerent Russia. The West has turned a blind eye to the fact that Georgian independence and Georgian democracy are inextricably linked. “In the post-Soviet sphere, Georgia is the most well prepared democracy,” says Guram Chakhvaze, an MP from the opposition National-Democratic party. “But this is not the standard that will allow us to enter NATO and think about the European Union.”
The Georgians want to join NATO and the EU not just as a hedge against Russian aggression, but also to realize aspirations stretching back to their last period of independence, between 1918 and 1921. Back then, Georgian leader Noe Zhordania did all he could to establish the country as a European social democracy, with a constitution, individual rights, and modern institutions. Such hopes were crushed by the Soviet invasion. Now, at the beginning of a new century, history is repeating itself. Down one road is democracy, individualism, and markets. Down the other is autocracy, vassalage, and statism. And if neither America nor Europe helps Georgia along the winding path it’s been traveling, well, who will?
Georgia is an old nation but a young country. Children are everywhere. Freedom Square in Tbilisi is filled at all hours with young men and women hanging out. They dress in what seems to be the Georgian national uniform: black tops and blue jeans. Visiting the state chancellery is like dropping by the set of one of those Brat Pack movies from the 1980s. Practically everyone in a position of authority looks like they are around 30 years old. Saakashvili is ancient at 42.
The reason for this is simple. By the time of the Rose Revolution, older Georgians had become invested in a bankrupt system. Shevardnadze’s nomenklatura benefited from the corruption and chaos. Younger Georgians did not. A rising cohort, born in an era of Soviet decline and raised in an age of post-Soviet anarchy, wanted to reform politics along the lines articulated by its heroes: Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Friedrich von Hayek. The changes would improve Georgia’s economic, political, and social life. But they would also transfer power from one generation to another, and create new opportunities for ambitious young men and women outside the power structure.
The most important reforms involved public safety. In 2004, Georgia was close to being a failed state. The mafia ran rampant. The police were just another gang. The province of Ajaria, bordering Turkey on the Black Sea, was ruled by the gangster Aslan Abashidze. The chances for a Georgian life untouched by crime or graft were nil.
The “youngsters,” as Saakashvili’s team is sometimes known, instituted radical changes. A minister of justice in Shevardnadze’s government, Saakashvili made his name fighting corruption. The laws against bribery were tightened and enforced. Compromised bureaucrats and police were fired. One notoriously corrupt department, the traffic police, was simply abolished. The government is proud of what it has achieved, sometimes ostentatiously so. The new ministry of internal affairs, a postmodern building resembling a lava-lamp fallen on its side, is made of glass to signify government transparency.
The changes came at a cost, however. When one fires the police, one creates an entire class of disgruntled men. The “thieves in law” did not leave Georgia without bloodshed. In the fight against organized crime, 27 policemen were killed. In 2004, the situation in Ajaria threatened to become an armed conflict between Abishidze and the central government.
In the end, though, the situation was resolved. -Ajaria’s reunification with Georgia was peaceful. These days, Saakashvili loves to take visiting dignitaries to the Black Sea city of Batumi, where he shows them how much his government has invested in the former breakaway province. Meanwhile, the crime rate is down. Eka Zguladze, the deputy minister of internal affairs, boasts that violent crime has decreased by 30 percent over the last three years. Public support for the government’s policies is high. As Rudy Giuliani demonstrated in New York City in the 1990s, once people feel secure, business and civic life flourish. “Without these reforms,” says the minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, Giorgi Baramidze, “none of the others would have materialized.”
Electrification was a top priority. Pre-Saakashvili, electricity was rare, and the overwhelming majority of Georgians who could turn on the lights were not paying for their power. The government invested heavily in hydroelectrics. In a matter of years, Georgia went from importing energy to exporting it. It’s now in a better position than many Eastern European countries, which rely on the Kremlin-controlled Gazprom to supply power. This is one area, at least, where the Georgians do not have to worry about Russia.
Another set of reforms involved fiscal policy. The Georgians looked to Estonia, where Prime Minister Mart Laar had made a variety of durable free-market changes in a post-Soviet setting. Saakashvili’s government privatized state enterprises. It instituted a flat tax, which captured revenue that otherwise would have gone into the underground economy. (Georgia also has a VAT.) The government cleaned out the customs agency and lowered duties and fees to encourage trade.
Georgia is now 11th on the World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business” rankings. Right now the big domestic initiative is an economic freedom bill. If it passes, referendums will be required for all tax increases, and Georgia’s debt-to-GDP ratio will be capped at 60 percent. Mention these reforms to American libertarians, and their mouths water.
Finally, there is education. Saakashvili inherited a public schooling system that was as compromised as the other bureaucracies. Members of the nomenklatura used their connections, as well as bribes, to guarantee entry into one of Georgia’s more than 200 universities. These schools hardly deserved to be called “universities,” however. They had few students and fewer requirements.
A 2004 education reform beefed up the entrance exams. It directed colleges to meet tough standards before they could accept students. The number of universities decreased as a result, leaving a lot of angry professors and administrators looking for work. But the government had brought yet another unruly public apparatus under control. One Georgian proudly told me that the system was so meritocratic, the son of a top education official had been denied admission into university because he did not pass the entrance exam. This wouldn’t have happened under Shevardnadze.
As much as the Georgians have accomplished, they face greater challenges. Domestically, the number one problem is unemployment. The government’s efforts to close state businesses led to an increase in joblessness. “We had to squeeze out big inefficiencies,” says an economic adviser to the government.
Normally, economic growth and foreign direct investment would create new jobs to replace the old. But the August 2008 war, followed by the global financial crisis a month later, devastated the Georgian economy. The official unemployment rate is 16 percent, but the real number is probably much higher. And it will take some time before foreign companies feel safe investing in Georgia with Russian troops occupying Sukhumi and Tskhinvali.
There is a lot to do on the democratization front, as well. The municipal elections were a big step, but the real test will come with parliamentary elections in 2012 and the race to succeed Saakashvili in 2013. As it stands, the opposition to the UNM is truculent and divided. The most recent addition to the political scene is the Union of Orthodox Parents, a conservative social movement with pro-Russian ties. It’s a fringe group with little public support. Nevertheless, it is in Georgia’s interest, as well as the West’s, to see a responsible opposition in Georgia, with broad appeal. And though the print press is oppositional, and the government has created a C-SPAN-like public affairs channel, more could be done to promote media freedom.
A case in point is the Imedi television station. The authorities seized Imedi during the November 2007 protests after its owner said he was committed to bringing down Saakashvili. The current ownership of the station is in dispute, but its ties to the government came under fire in March when it broadcast a “War of the Worlds”-style program that simulated another Russian invasion of Georgia. (The show caused panic on the streets of Tbilisi.) A member of the opposition says the biggest confidence-building measure the government could do is return Imedi to its former owner.
Saakashvili is no saint. He’s impulsive, daring, and aggressive. He sometimes pushes the envelope. He mishandled the 2007 protests. Members of his inner circle have a strange habit of becoming opposition figures. He made mistakes before and during the war with Russia. He’s becoming too friendly with Iran. The government is new at governing, and the opposition is new at opposing. In this part of the world, overreach by the authorities is all too familiar. But there is no question that his country is in better shape than it was six years ago.
A proposed constitutional reform would give more power to the prime minister at the expense of the president. If Saakashvili backed the change, as well as a cap on presidential terms (right now the executive is limited to two consecutive terms, but can run again after a break), he would confirm his democratic credentials.
The major threat remains to the north: Russia. The czars invaded in 1801, and the Soviets invaded 120 years later. Today, Vladimir Putin asserts Russia’s authority over its “near-abroad.” Critics like to make Saakashvili the scapegoat for a Russian aggression that is antique. But the Georgian leadership is the variable in this historical equation. The constant has been Russia’s compulsion to dominate her neighbors.
Georgia is tiny. The entire country could fit inside South Carolina. She is used to being under constant threat. “Russia has devastating airpower,” says a source in the ministry of defense. Not only is Georgia outmatched, the Rose Revolution is the last of the democratic “Color Revolutions” in Ukraine, Lebanon, and Kyrgyzstan to survive. Russia would like to see it stamped out too.
What the 2008 war made clear was that Abkhazia and South Ossetia were conflicts between Russia and Georgia, not internal conflicts persisting from the civil war. In February 2008, Putin was stung by Western recognition of Kosovo. He felt threatened by former Warsaw Pact nations and Soviet Republics moving toward the West. Searching for a way to display Russian power, he turned Western rhetoric on itself.
The window of opportunity came after the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest. The allies there denied Georgia and Ukraine Membership Action Plans (MAPs), but nonetheless stated that one day the two countries would be members of NATO. Here was Putin’s chance. He could reassert regional authority, topple Saakashvili, and not have to worry about Western intervention.
The Allies intervened in Kosovo to stop a genocide, so Putin began interfering with Abkazhia and South Ossetia using similar rhetoric. The Allies created a new country out of a former Serbian province, so Putin began laying the legal groundwork for Russia to create new states out of Georgian provinces.
When the war arrived, however, Putin failed to achieve his strategic objectives. His intervention rallied Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic states to Georgia’s side. Saakashvili remains in power. Abkazhia and South Ossetia may be members of the Russian Federation, but only Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, and the breakaway Moldovan province of Transnistria have recognized them as independent states.
But it was not all downside for Putin. Abkazhia and South Ossetia are strategically valuable—Abkazhia for its Black Sea port, South Ossetia for its location (from there, one can split Georgia in two). Most important, the invasion exposed Western weakness. Russia paid no price for its actions. Indeed, some in the West said Georgia was at fault. And the war damaged Georgia’s chances of joining NATO—not because Georgians no longer desire membership, but because the West is afraid of the collective responsibility such membership might entail.
When Putin looks abroad today, he sees an American administration so obsessed with obtaining Russian cooperation on Iran, it is willing to toss aside missile defense agreements with the Poles and Czechs, overlook the Russian occupation of Georgia, and ignore the Finlandization of Ukraine under Viktor Yanukovych. Putin sees an American president who hopes for a fantastical rapprochement with the Muslim world, and with the great powers of Russia and China, more than he supports the beleaguered small democracies of Georgia, Israel, and Honduras. Putin sees the Americans fixated on achieving “nuclear zero,” even as Iran hurtles toward nuclear weapons and the North Korean nuclear deterrent remains intact. Traditional strategic objectives, such as strengthening the alliance structure and bringing new countries into the liberal democratic sphere of influence, are left by the wayside.
“We lost two years because of war and economic crisis, but now we are recovering,” says Baramidze, the minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration. A visit to Georgia suggests he’s right. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone in the West Wing actually noticed?
Matthew Continetti is associate editor of The Weekly Standard and author, most recently, of The Persecution of Sarah Palin. He visited Georgia on a trip sponsored by its government.
