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#32 - JRL 2006-260 - JRL Home
From: Timothy Blauvelt <blauvelt@rambler.ru>
Subject: Re: Nicolai Petro in JRL 259/Georgia
Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006

In response to Nicolai Petro’s “Democracy thrives under ‘evil’ Putin” (JRL #259):

In his critique of David Mittell’s recent column “The Soul of the KGB,” Dr. Nicolai Petro offers a caricature of Georgian politics that appears just as uninformed and distorted as Mittell’s view of Russia.

Dr. Petro says “Mittell's description of the Georgian crisis also conveniently overlooks some key facts. The latest flare-up between the two countries began not with the arrest of four alleged Russian spies, but with the arrest two weeks earlier of much of Georgia's political opposition for allegedly plotting a coup that was supported by a member of Georgian President Saakashvili's own staff, Simon Kiladze.”

The “political opposition” that Dr. Petro refers to is the 12 members of Igor Giorgadze’s “Samartlianoba” party, the “Anti-Soros” movement and the “Igor Giorgadze Charity Foundation” who were arrested on September 6, 2006 and charged with high treason. Giorgadze is considered an escaped criminal in Georgia for his role in various political assassinations in the early 1990s. He is wanted by Interpol and is presently hiding in Russia. Where he gets the money to finance political parties and charitable foundations is not made public, but the source is fairly easy to surmise. Several particularly vociferous nationalists in the Russian political scene and have repeatedly and explicitly said that Igor Giorgadze will be the next president of Georgia, despite his criminal status and the fact that he has less than 1% support among the Georgian population.

In any case, it is clear to any observer of Georgian politics that those twelve individuals arrested in September are part of an extreme fringe that in no way represents or is representative of the real Georgian political opposition. To describe them as “much of Georgia’s political opposition” is ludicrous.

What the support or non-support of Simon Kiladze, a presidential aide who was arrested for espionage (presumably in the employ of Russia) in March 2006, for an alleged coup attempt has to do with anything is not clear to me.

Dr. Petro goes on to say: “You might wonder why someone who won election with 96 percent of the vote would be worried about political opposition, but that would mean explaining why Saakashvili's popularity in Georgia has fallen to levels that George Bush would envy. This would in turn lead to some rather awkward questions about the nature of Georgia's ‘democracy.’ No, no, much easier to simply blame Russia for everything that goes wrong in the region, which is exactly what Saaskashvili has done.”

I’m not sure what Dr. Petro has in mind by comparing Saakashvili’s popularity with that of George Bush. Saakashvili’s popularity has certainly fallen since he ran for the presidency unopposed in early 2004, but his ratings are still now in the fairly respectable 60% range (see the polling of GORBI, for example, the official partner of Gallup in Georgia). This was borne out by the percentages achieved by Saakasvhili’s National Movement in municipal elections in October.

The development of democracy in Georgia still has a long way to go: the opposition is weak and internally divided, and the lack of distinction between the governing party and the authorities clearly give incumbents a clear advantage. Although journalistic professionalism is lacking, media freedom seems to me to be much more in evidence than elsewhere in the former Soviet Union (as I write this I’m watching a computer animated Saakashvili babbling and dancing around in lipstick and a dress on an independent Georgian TV channel). Dr. Petro is correct that there is a tendency in Georgian politics to ascribe problems to interference from Russia, but that doesn’t inherently mean that there is no truth to those accusations.

I appreciate Dr. Petro’s efforts to set the record straight about developments in Russia, but I don’t see that it is helpful or necessary to misrepresent the situation in Georgia for that purpose.

Timothy K. Blauvelt
Tbilisi, Georgia.