Russian pundit downbeat on prospects for good relations with Georgia
RIA-Novosti
Moscow, 22 May: The Georgian ruling party, which is expected to retain power after the (21 May) parliamentary election, may aggravate relations with Russia, Political Research Institute Director Sergey Markov has said. (Passage omitted: according to preliminary results, Georgia's ruling National Movement is going to win the election)
"The goals set by these politicians for themselves is to integrate Georgia into the Western space: the European Union and NATO. One of their straightforward goals is to make relations with Russia worse, because they believe that this is almost synonymous with improving relations with the West", Markov told RIA Novosti.
He thinks that the expected victory of Mikheil Saakashvili's party will lead to an increase in tensions in Georgian-Russian relations and will aggravate the situation around the Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-Ossetian conflicts. "Because the group of politicians led by Saakashvili does not aim to achieve reconciliation with the peoples of Abkhazia and South Ossetia but wants to subdue them. Naturally, this will lead to an aggravation of relations with Russia", the political expert believes.
However, in the short term, tension in Georgia's attitude towards the unrecognized republics will calm down, Markov said. "The growing tension in the past few weeks was due to the fact that Saakashvili was trying to create a pre-election effect of the so-called closed ranks around the banner, that is to say, to conjure up an external enemy and, thanks to that, increase the number of votes cast for the incumbent authorities. He has achieved this goal, and the tension may drop", the political expert said.
Answering a question on the opposition's possible actions in response to the election results, he suggested that the opposition would hardly be able to change the political configuration.
"The opposition will not be able to benefit from this election and will wait for some future conflict (with the authorities)", Markov believes. (Passage omitted: preliminary results of the Georgian election).