PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS: GEORGIA AHEAD OF THE CONTROVERSIAL EVENT

24.09.2012

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS: GEORGIA AHEAD OF THE CONTROVERSIAL EVENT

Sergei Minasyan
Candidate of Science (History), Head of the Department of the Political Studies at the Institute of Caucasus

This autumn Georgia will face serious political challenge – regular and very important parliamentary elections will be held. On August 1, 2012 the president of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili appointed the day of parliamentary elections. According to law they should be held in 60 days, i.e. on October 1. In our opinion this will be the most crucial elections over the last decade of the Georgian history. Only the 2003 elections can excel them in the aspect of their significance as they triggered the “revolution of roses” and raised the incumbent president and his team to power.

The upcoming elections are remarkable for several reasons. But the most important is that they are connected with the end of Mikhail Saakashvili’s second presidential term. No matter what the incumbent president of Georgia wants, next year his second presidential term expires and he will have to leave. There is no other way. Neither Georgia’s public and political elite, nor some circles in the western countries which still sympathize with him are ready to accept Saakashvili’s third term. After all even Vladimir Putin with whom they like to compare Mikhail Saakashvili (of course discrediting his Russian “colleague”), did not stand for the third presidential term in a raw...

In fact it may turn out for the first time in the post-Soviet history of Georgia that its president after two presidential terms will pass his post voluntarily (even if many believe it is a formal procedure) to someone else. After that Georgia will become the fifth among the recognized, unrecognized and semi-recognized countries in the South Caucasus where the head of the state voluntarily gave his place to its successor. There were such precedents in Armenia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia. And in Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev who inherited presidency after his father’s death, most probably, is going to stand for the third presidential term, especially, taking into consideration the fact that Azerbaijani constitution provides no restrictions in this aspect.

Under such conditions the issue of further “employment” of Mikhail Saakashvili becomes rather topical. In the opinion of many analysts Saakashvili, giving up the highest elective office in the state, will tend to preserve leverages of real power, taking advantage of the recent changes made in the constitution of Georgia which delegate wider authority to the parliament of the country. Though the constitutional changes are coming into power after the presidential elections in 2013, but this fact even intensifies the political intrigue and the significance of the October elections is increasing disproportionately.

The case is not only the political fate of Saakashvili and his team-mates, but continuation of the policies of Georgia in the next decade, or just the opposite (in case if the authorities failed the elections) – its essential change by the leading oppositional power “Georgian dream”, headed by the Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili. That is why for Saakashvili and the ruling team the results of the elections have double meaning in the context of both provision of the political future of the incumbent president and continuation (even partial) of the policies initiated in the November 2003 by the “revolution of roses”.

Against this background it is natural that just like the leading oppositional power “Georgian dream” (which initiated public electoral campaign last year after Ivanishvili switched to the opposition) the Georgian authorities also take seriously the elections set on November 1. And the “arsenal” of the actions of the authorities is rather diverse – from using the “administrative recourse”, which is so characteristic of the post-Soviet countries, to pretty drastic (though expected) changes in Saakashvili’s team.

What is meant here is first of all “formalization of informal” – appointment of all-powerful Minister of Home Affairs Vano Merabishvili who was born in the mostly Armenian populated Samtskhe-Javakheti region to a post of the prime-minister this June. According to a well-known Georgian political scientist Gia Nodia, for the first time since the death of one of the “fathers” of the “revolution of roses” – a former prime-minister of Georgia Zurab Zhvania – a real significance of the post of a prime-minister “has been in accord with his formal rank”. Naturally, and this is accepted by the obvious advocates of the authorities, appointment of Merabishivili symbolizes the fact that the authorities has seriously underestimated political potential of the oppositional “Georgian dream” and now they try to compensate lost opportunities. But at the same time appointment of the former head of the Ministry of Home Affairs who has acquired reputation for terseness (unlike Saakashvili) and is known as an efficient manager, has also brought up to date the conversations about the candidacy of a possible successor of Saakashvili, thus drawing parallels with the “job swap” according to the “Russian scenario” in 2008.

But it is obvious that too straightforward option of “putinization” of Georgia (according to Gia Nodia) would be very undesirable for both Saakashvili and his team. One way or another it will greatly affect the efficiency of one of the most important “power” resources of Saakashvili – mixture of a fantastic creative political PR and a skillful usage of the image of a “democratic pro-western politician” in the eyes of a considerable part of a global community. That is why many observers in Georgia believe that in consequence of multi-shift cabinet reshuffle and in case of a successful for the current authorities results of the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections, a possible combination of a top authorities’ posts will be a little different.

E.g. Mikhail Saakashvili will take the post of the speaker of the parliament (thus gradually turning into the Georgian “Deng Xiaoping”), Vano Merabishvili will remain a prime-minister (considerably consolidating his positions in a result of constitutional changes) and the incumbent speaker of parliament David Bakradze will stand as a candidate for presidency with considerably curbed authority. Another option is proposal by Mikhail Saakashvili today’s mayor of Tbilisi Giga Ugulava as a candidate for presidency. He is the only representative of Georgian political establishment who can be compared by the qualities and position with Vano Merabishvili. But this option is possible only in case if Saakashvili does not rely on an unconditional loyalty of the prime-minister and would like to counterbalance him with no less influential and active Ugulava.

The degree of practicability of such political combinations will be proved by time. However, it is obvious that for the implementation of such scenarios the current authorities will have to solve a crucial short-term task – to secure convincing victory at the parliamentary elections in two and a half months. And this seems to be rather hard task for Saakashvili and his team under current conditions, even taking into consideration a “classical” usage of administrative resources and obvious power pressure in favour of a ruling party. However wining the majority at the parliamentary election will be ambivalent victory for the ruling elite. It would be much harder to get the legitimization of such a victory which will be most probably impossible without using the administrative resource. In other words Saakashvili and his team will have to go through serious post-electoral processes, because the opposition, which has been winning serious public support for recent months, will hardly put up with expected mass violations about which the leaders of “Georgian dream” are cautioning their electorate and international observers.

The elections in 2012 differ from the previous elections considerably because there are at once several factors directed against the current authorities of Georgia. The strength and maturity of the opposition (many political powers which cannot be called marginalized gathered under the “umbrella” of Ivanishvili’s movement), serious financial possibilities of billionaire Ivanishvili, and West’s “tiredness” of Saakashvili’s harsh and extravagant steps put themselves on the map.

However, even against this background Saakashvili still has an old political ace up his sleeve (though used for many times but still in demand) – demonstration of his phenomenal image of a strong-willed leader which has no alternative against the background of “inadequate” opposition. Till now it allowed Saakashvili to use his “administrative resource” without paying too much attention to the opinion of the international community and to successfully “manage” the elections. But the degree of the efficiency of that ace supplemented by the unrestrained political improvisation of the Georgian president will become clear within the next two months.

As for the areas of compact settlement of the national minorities – Armenians in Samtskhe-Javakhq and Azerbaijanis in Qvemo-Kartli – there will be no special political developments before the elections. The authorities will traditionally use those regions, which are under the tough police and force control, as a kind of a saving-box for the votes of the electorate of the Armenian and Azerbaijani origin. The public control in these regions has always been lower than the police control which allowed the authorities to openly use these regions for ballot rigging. As for the effect the elections will have on the population of the regions where mostly Armenians and Azerbaijanis live it will become clear only in October. However this regards the rest of Georgia as well...

“Globus” analytical journal, #9, 2012

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