Azerbaijan is relatively more advantageous than Georgia and Armenia and enjoying the blessings of its hydrocarbon reserves. Even though Nagorno-Karabakh issue is still a big problem for this country, politics of multibillion projects has become more dominant recently on the agenda. On the other hand, Georgia experienced a civil war, a velvet revolution and now a political crisis. It is politically a fragile country and unlike Armenia and Azerbaijan has to deal with the secessionist groups in the country.

After the collapse of Soviets, the first president of Georgia’s -Gamsakhurdia’s- era was a typical authoritarian period. This type of an authoritarian administration was seen a way for territorial integrity as well as for independence of Georgia and later for democracy. (Nodia, 1997, p.4) Thus, democracy was not seen as the priority. Moreover, Nodia claims that Gamsakhurdia’s populist nationalist policies “… provoked armed conflict in South Ossetia” (1997, p.4)

These policies not only undermined the strong position of the new nationalist leader, but also his policies towards the minorities in Russian territory were taken as a threat by Russia. A while later, due to the pressure of the opposition and lack of international support he had to leave his presidential office and “… fled Georgia for Armenia” (Nodia, 1997, p. 5)

Shevardnadze has to deal with the internal turmoil going on in the country and the Russian influence. Even he tried to establish strong bonds with Russia, he realized that this type of  a relation would not be effective for the solution of the country’s economic bottleneck. He began to conduct a west oriented policy. Beginning from 1994 he implemented serious reforms in the framework of liberalization of the economy. However, his efforts were limited due to several reasons like mafia like cartels and lack of experienced bureaucrats to conduct such policies. (Nodia, p.7)

Shevardnadze’s pro-western policies were really effective to strengthen his position, but not enough.

He announced Georgia’s support to the US in this country’s fight against terrorism and spoke out the desire of becoming a NATO member in 2002. The US provided financial support for the reformation of Georgian counter-terrorism capabilities. (Miller, 2004, p. 13) In addition to this, in the framework of East-West energy corridor policies, substituting Armenia in multibillion projects like Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE), it has become the third party.

Shevardnadze tried to have good relations, not only with the West, but also with Russia. His policies can be defined in the concept of balance of powers. Miller claims that, beginning from the mid 2003, to establish good relations with Russia, Shevardnadze decided to allow Russian energy dominance in Georgia. (2004, p. 15) However, as we see in Saakashvili’s administration experience, this caused a big damage on Georgia in the long term. Having no good relations with Georgia, Russia decided to increase the price of gas, supplied by itself in a subsidized manner, and claiming that increasing price of oil and gas in the world markets was the main reason. This can be perceived so rational, but a decision implemented that sudden can be described as a leverage imposed to Georgia. New projects like BTE and BTC was really vital to be able to survive such a bottleneck.

Even though the western block supported Shevardnadze via energy and economic policies they were eager to see a smooth transition to democracy in Georgia. In this sense, 2003 parliamentary elections were a milestone and closely monitored by the West. However, shortcomings of these elections paved the way for a new chief for Georgia.

Shevardnadze tried to avoid from this inevitable result and tried to use his last card; the army to oppress the rallies of the opposition, protesting the election results. However, this did not even helped to him and Shevardnadze announced that “… it is better that the president resigns”. (Miller, 2003, p. 18)

Political Crisis again in Georgia

Georgia’s unbalanced political situation preserves its profile even today. Delicate issues like Abkhazia and Ossetia are still unresolved problems of this country. Saakashvili, promising so much, has come to power just after Shevardnadze. However, these kinds of problems cannot be resolved overnight and in a way he might have failed to manage expectations of the society. Rhetoric of Russian manipulation factor on these latest events is being told by the government. Even though it would be too naïve to say that Russia has no role on latest events, unsolved problems and ongoing political conflicts can be shown the main reasons of the situation going on in Georgia.

Saakashvili government might have expected too much from the Western block and they ignored the Russian factor, which is a really delicate issue in Georgian political life. Western Block, in particular the EU and the US have their own problems. Elections in the US with the problem of Iraq and economic fragilities have become high on the agenda. For the EU integration and creation of common policies cannot be formed yet and the Union could not concentrate on these problems due to several reasons and elections in France and Germany, and now in the UK.

While trying to survive from this political crisis, Georgian government is pursuing a policy to preserve the image of their government and country. In this framework, Georgian PM was in Turkey last week. He and the State Minister Mr. Tuzmen announced a trade agreement that would be signed between two countries in a couple of weeks. Moreover, Turkey indicated its support for the political stability in Georgia.

Georgia should pursue a balanced foreign policy and Russia could not be ignored in this equation. Georgian PM’s Turkey visit was a good symbol of developing relations between the two countries.

This country has too many weak points like Ossetia, Abkhazia, economy etc. Concentrating firstly economic policies and giving impetus to democratization process should be high on the agenda. Lifting state of emergency and announcing early elections are really significant in this sense. What is expected from Georgia is to conduct free and fair elections. Otherwise, pro-Western liberals cannot be differentiated from their predecessors and would turn into authoritarians.   It should be recalled that they were non-democratic implementations of previous leaders that undermined their authority.

References:

•  Miller, E. A. (2004). ‘Smelling the Roses: Eduard Shevardnadze’s End and Georgia’s Future’, Problems of Post Communism, 51(2), pp. 12-21.
• Nodia, G. (1995) ‘Georgia’s Identity Crisis’, Journal of Democracy, 6(1), pp. 104-116.

For your comments:

hozertem@gmail.com 

Hasan Selim Özertem

Editor of USAK Energy Review

19 November 2007