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Chapter 2

Illusions of Democracy

The First Years of Independence

During the last two decades of the Soviet Union, Georgia was one of the most affluent of the country’s fifteen republics. An economy buoyed by the sale of wine, tea, fruit, and mineral water as well as its position as one of the major tourist destinations of the Soviet Union meant that Georgians enjoyed a higher standard of living than most of their compatriots in other parts of the USSR. In these years, Georgia was also viewed as an important cultural center where artists, film makers, and others worked and had an impact on the entire USSR. Distance from Moscow and the relatively competent leadership of Communist Party first secretary Eduard Shevardnadze from 1973 to 1985 also contributed to quality of life in Georgia.

The impact of the Soviet Union on the development of Georgian nationalism in the twentieth century is important for understanding the struggles that country now confronts.¹ The 1921 Soviet takeover destroyed the nascent, independent Georgian state, but it did not destroy Georgian nationalism; it froze it. As in other areas of the Soviet Union such as Ukraine, nationalist uprisings in Georgia persisted well into the 1920s, primarily in the difficult to access mountainous regions. These uprisings were brutally repressed. However, when the Soviet Union began to collapse, Georgian nationalism began to thaw. For Georgian nationalists, there is a strong continuity between the 1920s and the 1980s and 1990s. The activism of the late 1980s and early 1990s opposed the authoritarian Soviet regime, but independence and self-determination, not democracy, were the movement’s primary goals.

The end of the Soviet period instigated dramatic change throughout the fifteen newly independent countries that had once formed the Soviet Union, but Georgia was something of an extreme case. Georgia had been one of the wealthiest of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union, but its economic decline was greater and more rapid than that in almost any of the others, and by 1995 it was one of the poorest of the newly independent states.

Ironically, the newly independent Georgia might have seemed to an outside observer in 1991 like a likely prospect for a smooth evolution toward stability and democracy. As a small republic with a relatively homogeneous population by Soviet standards; a border with Turkey, a NATO member, potentially important ally, and trading partner; an educated population; and an established market niche, Georgia seemed to have many positives. Sadly, by the mid-1990s, all this had been squandered; the country had devolved into an impoverished, wartorn, almost lawless country in a period of only a few years.

The modern Georgian state was born in March 1991 when the Georgian people overwhelmingly approved a ballot referendum calling for independence. A few months later, they went to the polls again to elect the government for the new state. The winning party in that election, Round Table, was led by Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a dynamic, popular Georgian nationalist who was viewed as one of the leaders of the renascent Georgian nationalist movement. Gamsakhurdia was not, however, either a democrat or prepared for the task of governing.

Georgia’s first years of independence under the leadership of Gamsakhurdia were not easy ones. Rather than initiate a new democratic era, Gamsakhurdia sought to create a new one-party system. The Round Table, which had come together during the late Soviet years as a rallying point for Georgian independence activists, proved unable to govern. Although elected by a substantial majority in an election that was essentially free and fair, Gamsakhurdia was in many ways an undemocratic leader. He did not tolerate opposition, often calling political opponents traitors and other epithets. Effective institutions such as courts, legislative bodies, and bureaucracies did not evolve during these years. Gamsakhurdia’s behavior became increasingly erratic and divisive. He did, however, manage to maintain a reasonable degree of popularity among the Georgian people who had elected him to office.²

Under the ineffective leadership of the Round Table in the early 1990s, Georgia rapidly slipped into civil strife, territorial instability, and economic collapse. Indeed, Gamsakhurdia’s inability to govern effectively led to a descent into nearly anarchic conditions. The government failed to deliver services, maintain infrastructure, or implement the law. The economy rapidly collapsed as infrastructure fell into disrepair or was destroyed or stolen. Difficult relations with Russia, Georgia’s largest trading partner, rapidly dismantled the tourist market as well as the external market for products such as wine, mineral water, and other foodstuffs.

Political strife of various hues exacerbated the economic collapse. First, two regions of Georgia, South Ossetia in 1991 and Abkhazia in 1992 (inhabited by Georgians as well as Ossetians and Abkhazians), declared independence, precipitating civil conflicts that ended in 1993 when Georgia lost control over both regions. The Abkhaz and Ossetian opponents of Georgia were supported by Russia, but their actions can also be partly attributed to Gamsakhurdia’s heated nationalist rhetoric. Efforts to bring them back into Georgia through some kind of federalist arrangement are still being undertaken and remain central to the ongoing tension between Russia and Georgia. An estimated 250,000 Georgians living in those regions fled to other parts of Georgia, creating a problem of resettling internally displaced persons (IDPs) that has still not been resolved.

A third region, Ajara, also declared de facto independence from Tbilisi during this time. The regime of strongman Aslan Abashidze, who would later play a key role in the Rose Revolution, remained semi-autonomous until May 2004, when Abashidze, in the face of aggressive efforts from the new government, fled to Russia and Tbilisi regained control of Ajara.

Even with Ajara, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia excluded, Georgia was still far from stable. Civil strife between supporters of Gamsakhurdia and opponents of various stripes were rampant. Armed gangs controlled parts of western Georgia, particularly in the Samegrelo region. In 1991–92, civil war appeared imminent as armed conflict took place on the streets of Tbilisi, the parliament building was shelled, and armed gangs intimidated residents of the capital, bringing work and commercial activity to a virtual standstill. Georgia, in short, was on the verge of collapse.

A motley collection of Gamsakhurdia opponents, including gangsters, intellectuals, former Communist party leaders, businesspeople, and even a few democrats, sought to replace the democratically elected president with someone who might be able to hold the country together, bring it sorely needed international recognition and support, and perhaps even behave a little bit more rationally and democratically. The man they turned to was the former first secretary of Georgia, who had moved on to international renown as the foreign minister of the USSR. Thus Eduard Shevarnadze returned to his native Georgia from Moscow to serve as its second post-independence leader.

In the West, the return of Shevardnadze was viewed, and to a great extent continues to be viewed, as unambiguously positive for Georgia. The experienced and mature Shevardnadze, so the narrative goes, a man of international renown, respected all over the world for his tenure as Soviet foreign minister, was being asked to return to his native Georgia and try to pick up the pieces left by the failed presidency of the erratic, undemocratic, slightly nutty Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Shevardnadze shared this view, often referring to his return to Georgia as one of the proudest moments in his career.³

The truth is more complicated. Gamsakhurdia, for all his many failings, was a democratically elected president. Shevardnadze was not elected to replace Gamsakhurdia; he was appointed by a collection of elites, some with strong ties to organized crime. While clearly a more competent, experienced, and perhaps even decent leader, Shevardnadze had no democratic foundation for his return to Georgia in 1992, when he was appointed acting chair of the Georgian State Council, effectively becoming the country’s leader. His assumption of this position may not have been a coup in the classic sense, but it certainly veered in that direction. Failure to understand this fact and how it influenced the feelings of ordinary Georgians toward their first secretary turned State Council chair (and in 1995, following constitutional changes, president) was central to many of the problems the West encountered in its democracy assistance policies during Shevardnadze’s tenure as president.

Shevardnadze’s Return to Georgia

When Shevardnadze became Georgia’s leader in 1992, he immediately faced the daunting tasks of bringing stability and the rule of law, establishing diplomatic ties with the West, rebuilding Georgia’s economy, keeping what was left of the state from disintegrating further, and beginning democratic reforms. The future of the Georgian state rested on resolving at least some of these problems.

The first few years of Shevardnadze’s presidency produced markedly mixed results. The unrest in Abkhazia and South Ossetia had begun during Gamsakhurdia’s tenure, but in Abkhazia the actual shooting began under Shevardnadze. The conflicts wound down with Georgia losing both regions, roughly 20 percent of its territory. Additionally, the moribund economy recovered only partly and very slowly, so unemployment and poverty remained enormous problems for the state and its new president. The country’s infrastructure, which had collapsed with the Soviet Union, also recovered only slightly; power outages and disruption of gas and water supplies continued to plague most of Georgia through the mid-1990s.

There were, however, positive signs as well during the early years of the Shevardnadze administration. First, Shevardnadze brought enormous personal prestige to the presidency, and Georgia benefited directly and indirectly from that prestige. Internationally, Georgia was the only former Soviet state other than Russia with a president who was well known and respected globally. The names of leaders of other post-Soviet countries, such as Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, were completely unknown in the West, but Shevardnadze did not have this problem. Through his formidable network of relationships and personal ties at the highest levels of dozens of foreign governments, Shevardnadze was able to accelerate Georgia’s diplomatic recognition. With Shevardnadze leading Georgia out of the chaos of the Gamsakhurdia period, foreign countries began to establish diplomatic ties, setting up embassies, forging bilateral agreements, and providing much needed foreign aid.

On taking office, Shevardnadze began to bring a measure of stability back to Georgia. The civil conflicts that had reached as far as the capital toward the end of Gamsakhurdia’s time in office decreased. Working with both business leaders and criminal elements, Shevardnadze was able to rein in the most dangerous and unlawful elements in Georgia, including Jaba Ioseliani’s Mkhedrioni, a paramilitary ultranationalist group based in western Georgia that was heavily involved in criminal activities. The country’s infrastructure was not rebuilt during this period, but it did improve so that more Georgians had slightly more access to gas, water, and electricity.

Shevardnadze positioned himself as the guarantor of Georgian stability, especially when interacting with foreigners. This role was largely accepted by the international community as diplomats and foreign policy makers were relieved to see a friendly and competent face at the helm of one former Soviet republic. However, Shevardnadze continued to be perceived differently by foreigners and Georgians, a theme that would continue throughout his presidency. Many Georgians saw Shevardnadze as an improvement over his predecessor and were grateful that some stability had returned to their lives, but they did not accept the Western narrative, which Shevardnadze promoted, in which the Soviet foreign minister had come back to his native land to save the teetering independent state. They remained frustrated with his failure to expand the economy, rebuild basic infrastructure, bring real democracy, or curb the corruption that continued to plague Georgia throughout the 1990s.

The modicum of stability that returned to Georgia in fact made it possible for corruption to become more formalized and to infiltrate every aspect of life. The police were little more than an organized crime ring, shaking down motorists for bribes, planting drugs on innocent people and demanding money for the charges to be dropped, and buying and selling positions in the police force. The education system gave way as poorly paid professors and dishonest university officials sold grades and college degrees to students of the newly rich corrupt business class. Ties between government and business were strengthened as government officials grew rich accepting bribes from business interests or stealing tax revenue and foreign assistance money. By 2000 it was virtually impossible to find an area of Georgian life untainted by corruption.

This view of the situation is borne out by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. This watchdog group’s annual survey ranks “more than 150 countries by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.”⁴ It does not rank every country for every year, but the data for Georgia, when available for the last years of Shevardnadze’s administration, are startling. In 1999 Georgia ranked 84th of 99 countries; it ranked 85th of 102 countries in 2002 and a remarkable 124th of 133 countries in 2003 (countries are ranked from least corrupt to most corrupt).

Democracy in the Early Shevardnadze Years

Democratic development in Georgia during the first years of Shevardnadze’s presidency was mixed. The extreme illiberal democracy and chaos of Gamsakhurdia’s time gave way to a regime with elements of what Carothers (2002) has called “feckless pluralism.” A weak state placed virtually no restrictions on assembly or speech. Georgians quickly made up for decades of not being allowed to enjoy these freedoms by forming civic organizations and political parties, creating newspapers and television stations, and engaging in other forms of civic activism. Think tanks and advocacy groups emerged that were critical of the government and pushed for reforms of the political system. Newspapers and talk shows were filled with pundits, politicians, and others commenting, often very critically, on political developments.

Georgia during these years was generally viewed as the most democratic of the non-Baltic former Soviet countries, with the greatest freedom of media, assembly, and civic life. Although this description was somewhat akin to likening it to the tallest building in Topeka, there was clearly democratic space in Shevardnadze’s Georgia. There was a vibrant civil society and free media, and the government generally left people alone to live their lives. During this time the parliament emerged as an important and visible institution. By the late 1990s, the Georgian assembly was a place where different political voices were heard, issues were debated, and different views on subjects were aired. In this regard, Georgia was quite different from most of the other countries in the region.

Table 1 shows the Freedom House scores for the countries of the former Soviet Union from 1991 to 2003.⁵ The total scores are the combined total for the civil liberties and political rights indices used by Freedom House to determine the extent to which a country is free. Scores are given on a scale of 1 through 7; lower scores indicate countries that are freer. Aggregate scores range from 2 to 14, with 2 representing a very free and democratic country and 14 an extremely repressive regime. In addition to the individual country scores, the table shows the mean score for all 15 countries and for the 12 non-Baltic countries.

TABLE 1. Freedom House Scores for Post-Soviet Republics

Source: “Freedom in the World Country Ratings 1972–2006,” at http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=15

The years in Table 1 span the beginning of Georgian independence to the last years of Shevardnadze’s presidency. The data show that during the early years of independence, under Gamsakhurdia, Georgia was less free than most former Soviet republics, even when the Baltic states are excluded. This changed in the mid-1990s with the election of Shevardnadze to a full term as president and the liberalization of Georgia. Beginning in 1996, Georgia’s scores were lower than the mean for the region (significantly lower when the Baltic states are excluded). The only countries with comparable scores for this period are Armenia (slightly higher), Ukraine (virtually identical), and Moldova (slightly lower).

Although Georgia was significantly freer than many of the countries of the former Soviet Union, it was not a democracy. Elections were not free; the rule of law was not strong; democratic institution such as functioning bureaucracies did not exist; and corruption was ubiquitous. Moreover, the state, while stronger than during Gamsakhurdia’s presidency, was still extremely weak. In many parts of the country, legislation and regulations were of only peripheral import as local governors appointed by the president, powerful and corrupt businesspeople, or gangsters capriciously exercised the real power. In other areas there was no real authority at all.

The exception was the southwestern province of Ajara, where Aslan Abashidze had consolidated a dictatorship through which he strictly controlled the region and its population of roughly 120,000 and enjoyed semi-autonomy from Tbilisi. In Ajara there were almost no civic organizations, fundamental freedoms, or political opposition. Abashidze’s regime was involved deeply in organized crime, allegedly including smuggling drugs, stolen goods, and weapons. He personally enriched himself tremendously through this activity.

The regime was characterized not only by widespread ties to organized crime and a lack of freedom unlike anywhere else in Georgia but also by a cult of personality around the very eccentric Aslan Abashidze. Abashidze cultivated a kind, grandfatherly image for himself. He was known throughout Ajara as babu, Georgian for grandfather. His tranquil face shone out from billboards and posters throughout the region in which he was frequently pictured with his own grandchildren or groups of Ajaran children. Visitors to his palace in Batumi, the capital, were often treated to a monologue that lasted several hours, during which Abashidze would explain his family’s history over the last several centuries, the artistic and cultural achievements of Ajara, and the superiority of his regime to that in the rest of Georgia. Abashidze wore only black, gray, or white clothing and lived and worked in a palace with high ceilings and almost no decorations on the white interior walls other than numerous flat-screen television sets.

Thus, by the late 1990s, Georgia had evolved into a semidemocratic hybrid in which the governing regime was neither strong nor authoritarian, but processes were fundamentally unfair and government decisions were not made in a way that could be called democratic. The parliamentary elections of 1995 and 1999, as well as the presidential election of 2000 in which Shevardnadze was reelected, were viewed as flawed by foreign and domestic observers. The government during this period was also working more closely with corrupt business interests. But the strong civic life, relatively functional legislature, and the president’s ambiguous attitude toward democratic reform made Georgia an intriguing country with regard to democratic potential.

One of Shevardnadze’s first acts as president was to create a political party, the Citizens Union of Georgia. The CUG quickly grew to dominate Georgian politics, with the president, most of the legislature, the bureaucracy, and other government leaders members or supporters of the party. There were several opposition parties such as the People’s Party, Traditionalist Party, Labor Party, and Industrialists, but none of them played a central role in the government. The exception was the Revival Party, the dominant party in Ajara.

Shevardnadze sought to bring a broad swath of Georgia’s political and social leadership into the CUG as a way to help bring the country together after the chaos of the Gamsakhurdia years. While this effort was partially successful, the result was that by the late 1990s Georgians were living under their third one-party rule in a ten-year period. It was not to be their last. The CUG rule was relatively benign, but it severely stunted democratic growth in Georgia and made it difficult for groups to compete through democratic structures such as elections. As in all one-party systems, struggles for power within the party and disputes over party policy were much more important than elections and parliamentary processes, the way such issues are usually resolved in democratic countries. Thus, while the parliament was a place of vibrant debate, most of this occurred entirely among members of the governing CUG.

The CUG was far from unified; its leadership included reformers, corrupt business people, former communist elites, and others. The reform wing was led by Zurab Zhvania, a charming and brilliant Shevardnadze protégé who had been brought into the CUG from the Georgian Green party. Zhvania possessed an understanding of, and commitment to, democracy not often seen in post-Soviet political leaders. Fluent in English, well connected in foreign policy circles throughout Europe and the United States, and possessing a brilliant political mind and a deep understanding of how government works and how to get things done in a country like Georgia, Zhvania seemed like precisely the kind of leader Georgia would need after Shevardnadze. Zhvania was an extraordinary raconteur with a good sense of humor who could make anybody feel comfortable in his presence. He had the valuable political gift of making whomever he was speaking with feel they were the most important person in his world. During these years, Shevardnadze supported Zhvania, promoting him to Western leaders as the best hope for Georgia’s future and using him to indirectly demonstrate his own commitment to democracy and reform.

Zhvania was not the only reformer in the CUG. Throughout the 1990s he drew into his circle other reformers, often but not always young, generally English speaking, and partly trained in the West. They included people like Gia Baramidze, Zurab Noghaideli, and Misha Machavariani. By the late 1990s, the team Zhvania had assembled looked like the next generation of CUG leaders, who would be able to lead the reform efforts in Georgia. They were seen as in the ascendancy within the CUG and as enjoying the favor of President Shevardnadze, who usually drew attention to these reformers in his discussions with foreigners.

These young reform-oriented politicians did not form the majority in the CUG, which was dominated by corrupt and inefficient elements. The question why these reform oriented leaders stayed in the CUG as long as they did is critical. There are several likely reasons. First, none of the other parties in the 1990s were a good fit for them either. Abashidze’s Revival Party was dominated by corrupt and criminal forces, and most of the other parties were either also corrupt or irrelevant. Second, Shevardnadze regularly indicated to the reformers themselves and outside the party that the reformers were the next generation of party leadership and all they needed to do was to wait a few more years. Last, many of these reformers probably felt that in a de facto one-party system, they could only make a real difference from within the party.

The most visible, talented, and important reformer Zhvania would bring into his circle was a young Georgian lawyer, Mikheil Saakashvili, who upon completing his LLM through a Muskie fellowship at Columbia University had gone to work at the “white shoe” Manhattan law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb, and Tyler. Zhvania lured Saakashvili away from a promising and lucrative legal career to return to Georgia and serve first as an MP and then as justice minister. Saakashvili quickly developed into an enormously talented and energetic politician.

In addition to his studies in the United States, Saakashvili had studied in Ukraine during the Soviet period. He was fluent in English, Ukrainian, French, Dutch, and Russian. Although he had been born into an elite Tbilisi family, Saakashvili possessed an extraordinary ability to communicate with ordinary Georgians. He was also quite young when he returned to Georgia. Born in December 1967, he had not yet reached his thirtieth birthday when Zhvania urged him to return to help rebuild his country.

The Last Years of Shevardnadze’s Georgia

After the 2000 election, when Shevardnadze was reelected handily in an election viewed as deeply flawed—poorly prepared voter lists, voters casting ballots more than once and other forms of fraud—the seventy-two-year-old president seemed in a strong position. He had avoided any serious opposition in his reelection campaign and kept his party, which still dominated the legislature and Georgian politics generally, unified throughout the campaign. He remained broadly respected internationally for his role in ending the Cold War and bringing Georgia back from the precipice of disaster. This term was to be his last, before he planned to retire as a respected elder statesman of both international and Georgian politics.

Shevardnadze played an enormous role in late twentieth-century Georgia. By the time he left office in November 2003, he had been leader of Georgia, as Soviet republic or independent country, for 22 of the previous 30 years. For an additional 6 of those years, when Shevardnadze was Soviet foreign minister, Georgia was governed by Jumbar Patiashvili, a Shevardnadze loyalist. Shevardnadze was more than just the long-time leader of Georgia: he was a man of extraordinary political talent who began life as a poor youth in the mountains of the rural region of Guria and rose to be one of the most powerful men in the world. Moreover, he did so in the competitive, often nasty world of Soviet politics.

After he returned to Georgia in 1992 he again became the sun around which Georgian politics revolved. Politicians positioned themselves not according to any ideology but by their degree of support or opposition to Shevardnadze. His behind the scenes machinations could set opposition parties squabbling with each other for weeks. By the end of his tenure as president, both opposition and government blocs in parliament were filled with people he had appointed, recruited, or supported. When he needed to remind Georgians about his status, he would drop the name of a U.S. president or secretary of state or other world leader with whom he enjoyed a personal relationship. Those who stayed close to him could access these resources; those who had never been close to him would have a hard time getting a phone call returned in Washington, London, Berlin, Strasbourg, or Brussels.

Shevardnadze’s personal prestige and relationships in the West prevented many observers and policy makers from becoming aware of the depth of Georgia’s problems. These people had a difficult time recognizing that the man who had worked so closely with the United States as Soviet foreign minister could be part of a regime that was profoundly corrupt and dishonest and that, for example, stole elections. They wanted to believe Shevardnadze was fighting for reform and were reluctant to blame him personally for the corruption, election fraud, economic stagnancy, and other problems Georgia was experiencing. Shevardnadze, who seemed genuinely torn between the reform and corrupt wings of his party, encouraged this perception by showcasing Zhvania, Saakashvili, and the other reformers in the party, charming foreigners with recollections of the Cold War, and allowing a substantial amount of freedom in Georgia.

Many Western leaders, in addition to not fully understanding the undemocratic aspects of Shevardnadze’s regime, also critically misunderstood the view of Shevardnadze held by many Georgian people. Ordinary Georgians believed Shevardnadze was deeply and personally responsible for the economic and political problems in Georgia. Even those Westerners, particularly during the last years of his presidency, who were critical of Shevardnadze were baffled as to how the man who did such a good job as Soviet foreign minister could be so unsuccessful as president. Georgians asked themselves the precise opposite question: How could the man who was a bad first secretary of the Communist Party in Georgia and an even worse president have done such a good job as foreign minister of the Soviet Union?

The years 2000–2003 did not go well for the newly reelected president. He continued to be unable to deliver any kind of meaningful economic development for Georgia as unemployment remained high, foreign investment did not grow, and tourism and trade with neighboring countries did not return either. Nor was Shevardnadze able to make progress toward bringing South Ossetia and Abkhazia back under Georgian control or returning internally displaced people, who by the late 1990s numbered roughly 250,000, to their homes in these regions. Shevardnadze also failed to make any serious effort to reduce corruption, so that problem continued to grow, damaging the economy, destroying the education system, frightening off foreign investment, and generally making life in Georgia very difficult for its shrinking population. Throughout these years thousands of Georgians left for Russia, the United States, Germany, Israel—virtually anywhere where they would have an opportunity to make a living and send money home.

The 2000 election would prove to be a turning point. Shevardnadze’s major opponent was Jumbar Patiashvili, who had once served as first secretary during Shevardnadze’s tenure as Soviet foreign minister. Patiashvili was not well liked in Georgia, largely due to his support for the Soviet Union during the independence movement in the late 1980s and his role in the violent suppression of the April 9, 1989, demonstration in Tbilisi.

Shevardnadze was almost certain to beat Patiashvili, but his supporters and parties committed numerous cases of electoral fraud anyway. The report from the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) described “problems … in the following areas: interference by State authorities in the election process; deficient election legislation; not fully representative election administration; and unreliable voter registers.” The report also noted that “The authorities did not behave impartially and gave strong support for the election campaign of the incumbent. Also, there was no clear dividing line between State affairs and the incumbent’s campaign.”⁶ Human Rights Watch addressed the Georgian elections in its country report for Georgia for that year, stating that the elections were “marred by irregularities” but also adding that “nontraditional religious minorities were harassed, attacked, and subjected to baseless charges during the run up to the election.”⁷ In short, it was a typical post-Soviet, undemocratic election, even if the outcome was more or less what the voters wanted.

The 2000 presidential election was not the only fraudulent election in the late Shevardnadze years. The 1999 parliamentary election was also marred, but unlike the presidential election, the fraud, intimidation, bribery, and violence had a substantial impact on the outcome of the election and the makeup of the new parliament. In many respects, the flawed 1999 election laid the groundwork for the parliamentary election of 2003, so it is important to take a closer look at that election, its outcome and the politics surrounding it.

Interestingly, the ODIHR report on the 1999 election painted a much more positive picture than was perceived by most Georgians. The basic conclusion of ODIHR was that

the conduct of this election represented a step towards Georgia’s compliance with OSCE commitments, although the election process failed to fully meet all commitments. In the areas where elections were held, voters were mostly able to express their will and, despite some irregularities, were generally able to vote without interference in an atmosphere largely free from intimidation. However, some instances of intimidation and violence observed during the pre-election period and on Election Day, raise concern.⁸

The 1999 parliamentary election, like that of 2003, sought to elect 235 people to the Georgian national legislature through a mixed electoral system that consisted of party list and majoritarian components.⁹ The party list component was a single, nationwide list where 150 seats would be divided, based on proportion of the vote received, among parties that won 7 percent or more of the votes. The remaining 85 MPs were elected in districts that were coterminous with rayons.¹⁰ Only 75 of these were actually elected since ten seats were reserved for Abkhazia, which was not at the time under Georgian control. Because these majoritarian seats were based on rayons, the population of these districts varied dramatically, from fewer than 15,000 to more than 100,000. Surprisingly, this discrepancy never seemed to be an issue for Georgian reformers. The political reality was that the party list part of the election was of most concern, as most conceded that the majority of the district-based seats would be won by local corrupt business people loyal to the government. Unlike the 2000 presidential elections, where no politician was able to compete with Shevardnadze on a national level, the 1999 parliamentary elections were very competitive since Shevardnadze’s policies of allowing freedom of speech and assembly led to the creation of a number of strong opposition parties seeking to win seats from the governing CUG.

The CUG ran an aggressive campaign, combining modern campaign techniques such as polling, mail, and television advertisements with fraud and intimidation. The architect of this campaign was the CUG’s most prominent reformer, Zurab Zhvania, who by then was also speaker of the parliament.

Zhvania’s role in the election partially undermined his reformist credentials and weakened his position with the Georgian people. One key decisions for which Zhvania’s critics held him responsible was raising the threshold for parties seeking representation in parliament from 5 to 7 percent. Importantly, most followers of Georgia in the West, still wanting to believe the best about Shevardnadze, never really understood the extent of fraud in that election, or of Zhvania’s critical role in committing that fraud. This was reflected in the generally positive assessment of the election by ODIHR.

The CUG efforts to ensure a resounding victory led to multiple voting, particularly in the heavily ethnic Azeri region of Kvemo Kartli and the heavily Armenian region of Samskhe-Javakheti; it saw faulty voter lists throughout Georgia and widespread bribery and intimidation. However, this was not enough to guarantee the result the CUG wanted, so after Election Day the counting process was falsified as well. Most at stake was which parties would cross the 7 percent threshold and send members to parliament. Because this threshold was relatively high, and there were 150 seats to be divided among parties that crossed it, any party that received 7 percent of the vote was guaranteed at least ten seats in the new parliament, enough to form an official faction.¹¹ In addition to keeping some parties out of parliament, the CUG sought to raise its proportion of the vote so as to have the largest number of MPs possible.

Going into the election two parties, the CUG and Revival, were all but guaranteed to pass the 7 percent threshold. But it was not at all clear which, if any, other parties would pass the threshold. Revival was in a strong position because, as the ruling party in Ajara, it had the ability to steal as many votes as needed to get into parliament. Not surprisingly, a number of individuals and political parties sought to make a deal with one of these parties to run as a coalition or for their leaders be given a place on either the CUG or Revival list.

The result of the election was that two parties, the CUG and Revival, passed the threshold easily. The early results showed that two more parties, the moderate or pseudo-opposition Industrialists and the radical, anti-Shevardnadze Labor Party were close. Ultimately, the Industrialists made it into parliament with 7.08 percent of the vote, while Labor narrowly missed with 6.69 percent of the vote. The widely held, probably accurate, belief in Georgia was that the Industrialists were allowed into parliament because they came up with more money to bribe the election committee during the counting period.

The ODIHR report, while not explicitly supporting the Labor Party claim that it was deliberately kept out of parliament, makes it clear that there were many problems with the counting procedure at the central level.

The procedures followed were not sufficiently transparent. The figures released by the CEC (Central Election Commission) were based on the summation of precinct results arriving by fax from various DECs (District Election Commissions) in a random manner. … The tabulation was conducted in the CEC premises, which was not accessible to party representatives. Even some CEC members, particularly those from the opposition, were denied access to these premises. … The tabulation was conducted by a limited number of CEC technical staff with standard statistical software, which did not include special safeguards against technical errors. In case such errors occurred and they needed to be corrected, no trace was left for the wrong record after the corrections were inserted.¹²

The Labor Party and its leader, Shalva Natalashvili, were furious over these results and brought about several unsuccessful court cases seeking entrance into parliament. Natalashvili’s public anger at the CUG and Shevaradnadze did not subside over the following years. He held a special disdain for Zurab Zhvania, whom he seemed to view as a false democrat who had personally led the drive to keep Labor out of parliament.

The new parliament, like the old, was to be dominated by a diverse CUG block consisting of reformers, corrupt business and political interests, and former communists. Neither of the two opposition parties figured to pose a serious threat. Revival, if left to do what it wanted in Ajara, was not going to make trouble for the CUG. The Industrialists, led by beer magnate Gogi Topadze, were not strongly opposed to the CUG and would cooperate in exchange for support for their business interests. Thus, the major challenge for the CUG, and party leader in parliament Zurab Zhvania, was to hold the party together. This would prove to be difficult as the tensions within the party continued to grow. The roots of the party system of 2003, which would eventually lead to the Rose Revolution and the overthrow of Shevardnadze’s regime, lay in the CUG’s inability to remain a single cohesive party in the face of growing internal tension.

Structural issues contributed to the breakdown of the CUG in parliament after the 1999 election. The difference between a legislature organized by party and one organized by faction is subtle but, it turned out, extremely important. Once the parliament is elected, rather than forming large blocs for each party, any group of at least ten MPs can form a faction. A faction in this sense does not refer to an informal group of likeminded members within a party. In the Georgian parliament, factions are recognized formally. Each faction is given an office and representation on the committee that sets the agenda, media attention, and other perks. Thus, there is an incentive for the parliament to be disunified, which of course contributes to an imbalance between the executive and legislative branches of government. This structure is not at all uncommon in the former Soviet Union and contributes to weak legislatures across the region.

Mikheil Saakashvili was the first reform politician to formally break with Shevardnadze. Saakashvili’s return to Georgia and tenure as justice minister and then MP had not been easy. While he won accolades from the Georgian media, civil society, and many international observers for his uncompromising efforts to fight corruption, these efforts were significantly less appreciated from colleagues in the government, many of whom were deeply involved in the corruption. Saakashvili became increasingly frustrated before resigning in September 2001. After resigning, he ran for parliament as a majoritarian from Vake rayon in Tbilisi in late 2001 with support from the CUG. Vake is the most visible and elite rayon in Georgia, so the office of MP from Vake takes on a special significance. Saakashvili handily won the election. Saakashvili’s break with Shevardnadze was not entirely complete at that time, as Shevardnadze campaigned in support of Saakashvili during his race for parliament.

In 2000, while serving in parliament as a CUG majoritarian MP, Saakashvili became increasingly exasperated with Shevardnadze’s failure to support a reform agenda. Finally, in October 2001, he publicly broke with Shevardnadze and announced the formation of his own party, the National Movement-United Front (NM). He was able to persuade more than ten of his fellow MPs, all originally elected as CUG members, to join him in forming an NM faction in parliament. Thus, although the NM had not been in existence during the 1999 elections, it was formally recognized as a faction in parliament with all the requisite perks.

Saakashvili’s departure from the CUG was seen as a blow to Shevardnadze, but because Saakashvili had always been an outsider in the CUG, never attaining major party leadership positions, it was not devastating for Shevardnadze, who was still able to maintain his reputation as a reformer by pointing to another young reform leader, Zurab Zhvania, who was still speaker of parliament and held a leadership position in the CUG.

Zhvania’s break from Shevardnadze in fall 2001 was more devastating for Shevardnadze and not easy for Zhvania, who agonized for weeks before publicly separating himself from the man he considered his mentor and who often spoke about Zhvania like a son. Zhvania not only resigned as speaker of parliament and formed his own party, the United Democrats (UD), but he brought 22 MPs with him to make the UD faction the biggest in parliament. Zhvania was replaced as speaker by Nino Burjanadze, who would wait until the summer 2003 before breaking with Shevardnadze and joining the opposition.

Before the formation of the NM and the UD, led by Saakashvili and Zhvania respectively, another faction had broken off from the CUG. The New Rights, led by insurance magnate David Gamkrelidze—who, like Zhvania and Saakashvili, was under forty, spoke English, and was brought into politics by Shevardnadze—also claimed to be a reform oriented opposition party. Unlike the UD or the NM, the New Rights was not widely viewed as an opposition party. Instead, many saw them as a party of businesspeople supported, or even created, by Shevardnadze as an attempt to shift attention and support away from the growing opposition and demand for reform within the CUG.¹³

The New Rights took much of its style and approach from Gamkrelidze, who had been a doctor before making his fortune in insurance. Gamkrelidze was conservative in both politics and personality, and had a strong affinity for the U.S. Republican Party. He was put off by Saakashvili’s impatience and more radical edge, preferring to make more cautious and calculated decisions. Politics did not come easily to him, and he never seemed to be fully comfortable with the machinations and maneuverings essential for a good leader of a political party.

The line between CUG and the opposition parties was becoming murky in Georgia by 2001 and 2002, as many Georgians initially found it difficult to believe Shevardnadze’s top protégés were now leading many of the major opposition parties. Nonetheless, as the spring 2002 local elections approached, the new party system was more firmly in place. Of the three parties in parliament, the two pro-government parties were Revival and the CUG. While the CUG had begun to fracture and weaken, Revival was still unified in support of Abashidze’s authoritarian regime in Ajara, but its coalition partners from the 1999 election, most notably the Traditionalist Party, had broken off and informally become part of the opposition. The Industrialist Party remained unified, continuing to be a weak opposition voice but a frequent supporter of the CUG.

The opposition parties were divided between those who had never been part of the CUG, notably the Labor Party, a left-leaning party whose platform called for government spending on programs to help Georgia’s poorest voters. Labor frequently touted its credentials as never having been part of the CUG. The second group was the the breakaway factions/parties that had once been part of the CUG. These included the NM, UD, and New Rights. There were numerous smaller parties that had no representation in the 1999 parliament and were desperately trying to remain relevant. The most prominent of these were the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the People’s Party, both of which had been active in the movement for Georgian independence in the late 1980s, but by the beginning of the new millennium were no longer very relevant in Georgia.¹⁴

A few other aspects of the political party system were important as well. First, other than a social-democratic position taken on economic and social issues by the Labor Party, ideology was not very relevant in partisan differences. Most parties claimed to be center-right and to support market reforms, but rarely fleshed that position out or even demonstrated a clear awareness of what the term “center right” meant.

Instead, the issue that defined this party system was a party’s position relative to Shevardnadze. Moreover, as time passed and the president grew less popular, each party, other than the CUG, claimed to be the most genuine and strongest in its opposition. By 2003, the phrase “we are the only real opposition party in Georgia” was the boast of virtually every non-CUG party. Revival and the Industrialists based this claim on the fact that they had won seats in parliament independently of the CUG; Labor on having run on an aggressive anti-CUG platform in 1999 and been prevented from taking its rightful seats due to CUG election fraud. The NM and UD based their claim on having visibly broken with CUG leadership and by using their seats in parliament to form an anti-government group in that body. When parties were not asserting their reasons for being the only true opposition, they were often attacking the opposition credentials of the other parties.

There was not a lot at stake in the local elections of 2002 because most power in Georgia was centralized, but the balloting was viewed by many as a test for several of the newly formed parties and a preview of the 2003 parliamentary elections. These local elections were held in towns, cities, and rayons around the country, including a party list election for the Tbilisi city council. The voting was not altogether free and fair, but because there was so little at stake it was more so than either of the recent national elections. The three big winners were the New Rights, who won more seats nationwide than any other party, although this was in substantial part due to vote buying and bribery; the Labor Party, whose strong anti-Shevardnadze message resonated throughout Georgia; and the National Movement, which won seats throughout the country and, running under the slogan “Tbilisi without Shevardnadze” won a plurality of seats on the Tbilisi city council. The National Movement and Labor were able to form a majority on the city council, making Saakashvili the speaker of that body, a very visible position in Georgia. Because Tbilisi’s mayor was not directly elected but appointed by the president, Saakashvili was the highest ranking elected official in Tbilisi.¹⁵ He used this position for great political and symbolic gain. Zhvania’s United Democrats got a late start in these elections as the details of the split between Zhvania and the CUG took some time to resolve, but Zhvania’s party did respectably, winning a handful of seats throughout the country and in Tbilisi. Thus, the political environment had begun to take on more clarity as the parliamentary elections of 2003 approached.

Defining the Shevardnadze Regime

Categorizing Shevardnadze’s Georgia as a particular type of regime is a complex task. Examining Shevardnadze’s rule in this way, however, is important because this process helps clarify the Rose Revolution. For example, to determine the extent to which the Rose Revolution was a democratic breakthrough, or in fact a revolution, depends substantially on how the regime that preceded it is understood. The relevance of the Rose Revolution as a model to other countries struggling for expanded democracy also depends on how comparable the Shevardnadze regime is to other nondemocratic regimes.

The combination of a substantial amount of freedom, a weak state, restricted political competition, extensive corruption, powerful non-state actors, fraudulent elections, a strong presidency but a visible legislature—all of which characterized Shevardnadze’s Georgia—was unusual. While it is clear that Georgia during this period was neither democratic nor authoritarian, it is not clear whether it was in transition or was some kind of consolidated semidemocratic regime. If one views it as being in transition, it is equally unclear whether it was a period of transition to democracy or part of a lengthy transition, which began in the late 1980s, away from the Soviet system.