Photo courtesy of Reuters
The largest protests since the Rose Revolution of 2003 brought Mikhail Saakashvilli to power are underway right now in the Republic of Georgia, timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Soviet crackdown on independence protesters in Tblisi.
Protests have been ongoing since he came to power, and he has had a reign that can only be characterized as 'rocky' - but this time it is different. For starters, turnout is ten times what past protests have drawn, with 150,000 people expected in Tblisi alone, whereas past protests have drawn maybe 15,000 participants, tops.
For starters, this is the first time that all of the opposition parties have come together to coalesce into a mass movement, but perhaps more significantly, members of the government are adding their voices to the chorus calling for his ouster, with members of opposition parties decrying the slide toward authoritarianism and repression on behalf of the Saakashvilli regime.
In preparation of the protests, the parliament building was surrounded by fire engines and hundreds of riot police, and memories of November 2007, when Saakashvilli loosed the riot police and a brutal response on those protesters are still relatively fresh in everyones mind, prompting pleas for a peaceful protest from both the government and the opposition parties who are organizing the rallies. The military is standing by outside Tblisi, and tensions are high - the protests that were crushed a year and a half ago were one-tenth the size of the todays protests, and really, would anyone be surprised if Russia sent troops over the border if the military attacked civilian protesters? The Russians have a vested interest in Saakashvilli and his western-oriented government going the way of the transgressor. The current government had the unquestioned backing of the former US administration, but the Obama administration is not likely to be so forgiving.
The opposition has it's own problems, however, not the least of which is simply weakness, rendering it unable to capitalize on Saakashvilli's numerous blunders, not the least of which was the countries war with Russia last August, which Saakashvilli doesn't even acknowledge was a defeat. Add on top of that a lack of a constitutional mechanism for removing him from office, and he could very well dig in and try to remain in power until 2013 when his current term expires, although the odds of that are very slim. Zaza Gachechiladze, a Georgian analyst and the editor in chief of Georgia's The Messenger newspaper said today that he is "pretty sure" Saakashvilli will not resign, at least not immediately. "There is no mechanism whatever to force him to resign. Historically, however, he is finished. If he doesn't go today he has to go in three or six months. He will not survive until the end of his official term. He now has very little support in the country."
The Rose Revolution that brought him to power took months to reach critical mass, and today's protests are viewed as a starting point to such and end, while it's a given that the nation has not seen such focused opposition since then.
The next few days are going to be critical, and will reveal whether things in Georgia will merely be shaken up, or transformed completely.
Stay tuned.
Map courtesy of Stratfor
Sources for this post were a dispatch from the independent intelligence agency Stratfor and The Guardian |
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