Georgia – time for change we can believe in?

(Mark Almond for RIA Novosti) - At first sight the failure of Georgia's opposition last Friday to mobilise the kind of large crowd which had swarmed through Tbilisi's streets on 7th November last year was good news for President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Last year his regime had survived only by deploying the full panoply of crowd control measures from the latest ultra-low frequency dispersal equipment to spraying good old fashioned tear gas into the demonstrators and clubbing those who didn't get the message. This year's re-run minus the violence and the popular participation looked much better for Georgia's president, perhaps even for the country.

A lot has happened in Georgia for the last year. None of it good.

Back then, four years after coming to power in the so-called "Rose Revolution" full of promises to end poverty and corruption, Saakashvili's regime faced a chorus of disillusionment presided over a reality of growing economic hardship and anger at the corruption and favouritism of the clan of Saakashvili insiders. Ex-supporters now led the charge against a president still portrayed in the Western media as a model democrat and economic reformer.

That demonstration set in train a cycle of growing tension which culminated in Georgia's reckless onslaught on South Ossetia in August 2008. Mr. Saakashvili's calculation then seems to have been that  whatever the outcome of the war, his own position would be strengthened. Either his attack would succeed and he would be feted as the hero of national reunification, or if it went wrong his opponents would be stymied in denouncing him for fear of seeming to side with the rebels and Russia.

In the short term, despite the humiliating defeat for the Georgian army in August, Saakashvili's calculation seemed to work out. But anyone sensitive to Washington's vibes will have detected deep irritation with a protégé who took it upon himself to create an East-West crisis despite public Cold War-style criticism of Russia. As evidence mounted that Georgia's claims about who fired first were  contradicted by Western members of the UN  and OSCE monitoring missions in the country, Saakashvili should have noticed the ominous refusal of the State Department's point man for "People Power" revolutions, Dan Fried, to back the Georgian position.

Since the 1980s Mr Fried has been identifying and fostering the careers of first anti-Soviet, then anti-Russian, leaders of the future. Saakashvili seemed the brightest star from his stable. His fluent English and media savvy made him the darling of CNN and BBC. But it all went to his head.

At the same time in domestic Georgian politics, Saakashvili proved incapable of working with a team. Maybe Georgian politicians are too bent on being the boss themselves to form an effective cabinet. But since November, 2003, Saakashvili has fallen out spectacularly with his close allies in the "Rose Revolution."

Of course, the "Rose Revolutionaries" were hardly models of loyalty. They were all protégés of the man whom they overthrew in 2003: Eduard Shevardnadze. Not only had he appointed Misha Saakashvili to his first ministerial post but other key "Rose revolutionaries" like Saakashvili's first prime minister, Zurab Zhvania, or Parliament Speaker, Nino Burjanadze, were protégés of Shevardnadze.

Despite Western media portrayals of the new regime in November, 2003, as a youthful break with the past, in reality it was a revolt of Shevardnadze's political children.

That lesson will not have been lost on Saakashvili. As the Georgian president has shuffled and re-shuffled the political deck of cards in Tbilisi over the last year or so as disillusionment with his regime as grown, his real purpose has been to prevent any rival getting entrenched in the power structure and building a position from which to topple the president.

Now ex-comrades are lurking waiting for their chance to strike at Saakashvili. In exile in France sits ex-Defence Minister, Irakli Okruashvili, whose allegations of corruption and even murder sparked the political crisis in 2007. Former foreign minister, Salome Zurabishvili, also forms part of the Georgian opposition's "French connection." At home, ex-Speaker, Nino Burjanadze, waits to replay her 2003 role. 

Last Friday, demonstrators in Tbilisi held up banners calling on Barrack Obama to intervene in Georgia. Everyone knows that US patronage or at least consent is essential for any regime-change there. But it would be too humiliating for Washington to sponsor another people power-style globally-televised upheaval against Saakashvili. A palace revolution is what is likely. 

In fact, the apathy of ordinary Georgians favours the insiders-coup  because it means that the situation shows no sign of sliding out of control. That could encourage anti-Saakashvili plotters inside the regime or those opposition leaders with excellent contacts to the security services. None of Saakashvili's rivals want to see a genuine popular uprising nor does the US embassy. Who knows where it would lead? Saakashvili would be naïve to think that the calm in the streets is proof of his regime's stability. Anyone who remembers Tbilisi in early November, 2003, will recognise the same weariness and apparent apathy as another winter of poverty looms. By the end of that November the West's ex-favourite Shevardnadze was in retirement toppled by his own former pupils in politics cheered on by his sponsors like James Baker and George Soros. Then crowd scenes were in fashion and people duly swarmed the streets to celebrate Shevardnadze's fall. 

The fate of Shevardnadze should remind Saakashvili that being the darling of Washington is not a lifetime's appointment. The West is fickle. It is always looking for the next favourite, particularly when the current one has got above himself and made policy without consulting the White House. A quiet end for Saakashvili's regime is more likely than a CNN "live event." But will replacing Saakashvili with an ex-minister be a real change, or just another twist in Georgia's cycle of decay?

Mark Almond is Lecturer in History at Oriel College, Oxford, and a Visiting Professor in International Relations at Bilkent University, Ankara.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.