Saakashvili Runs for Presidency

Bloodless revolution leaders.

The leaders of the bloodless revolution, which led Shevardnadze out of office, announced today Mikheil Saakashvili as their single candidate to run for presidential elections, scheduled for January 4.

Nino Burjanadze and Zurab Zhvania said they put aside all the personal rivalries in order to succeed in the presidential and parliamentary elections.

The decision was widely anticipated, as Mikheil Saakashvili was a driving force of the three-week long street protests demanding Shevardnadze’s resignation.

“The presidential election campaign has already started and I am sure we will win. I am ready for our victory in the forthcoming elections,” Mikheil Saakashvili said at a joint new conference with interim president Nino Burjanadze and Zurab Zhvania.

Mikheil Saakashvili also said that his National Movement party and United Democrats party, led by Nino Burjanadze and Zurab Zhvania, will form a joint election bloc to run for the parliamentary elections, the date of which is not scheduled yet.

“Nino Burjanadze will be the leader of our election bloc,” Saakashvili added.

Zurab Zhvania said that the revolution is over. “However we are facing huge challenges ahead. First of all we should secure free and fair elections. And on the other hand we should tackle numerous problems in every field, especially with the collapsing economy,” Zhvania said while addressing the new conference.

“Defusing tensions with the region, particularly I mean Adjara Autonomous Republic, is of vital importance for us,” Mikheil Saakashvili said and emphasized on “the importance of normal relations with Russia.” He said that the situation in the country will not improve in couple of months.

“We are coming with the huge ambitious. We want Georgia to become an EU and NATO member. Very soon we will form a group of local and foreign experts, which will work over the country’s development strategy,” Zurab Zhvania said.

Burjanadze, Zhvania and Saakashvili also vowed to introduce important constitutional amendments “to prevent unilateral way of ruling in the country.”

Nino Burjanadze said that the cabinet of minister should be introduced, with the Prime Minister’s post. She did not rule out that Zurab Zhvania might become the Prime Minister.

Despite there are several other political figures who have already announced intention to run for presidency, it is widely anticipated that Saakashvili will not have any serious contenders. Former governor of Imereti region and Shevardnadze’s ally Temur Shashiashvili.

For many Georgians Mikheil Saakashvili is a hero of the velvet revolution. He broke in the Parliament chamber on November 22, while Eduard Shevardnadze was addressing the lawmakers, elected in fraudulent November 2 elections. Saakashvili was carrying a rose and shouting at Shevardnadze: “Resign, Resign.” 

U.S.-educated, 35-year-old lawyer Mikheil Saakashvili first came in the politics in 1995, when he was elected in the Parliament as a member of the Shevardnadze’s party Citizens’ Union of Georgia. He started his political career with the chairmanship of the parliamentary committee for legal issues.

He was re-elected in the Parliament in 1999 and became the leader of the Shevardnadze’s party’s parliamentary group. In the following year Shevardnadze appointed him on the Justice Minister’s post. However Saakashvili resigned from the post in 2001 after he failed to endorse anti-corruption bill, as a result of Shevardnadze’s resistance.

This was a turning point in Saakashvili’s political career. He formed a political party National Movement, which became a radical and major opposition force of Shevardnadze’s government.

Ex-president Shevardnadze, who said before his resignation that Saakashvili “is dangerous man,” refrained on November 26, to say whom he might back in the election.

“If I express any thoughts it would be bad. It’s not worth me being a trouble-maker,” he told reporters as he cleared his personal effects from his old offices.

President Shevardnadze visited on November 26 the State Chancellery, his former office, to pack his personal belongings. After Eduard Shevardnadze’s visit, Nino Burjanadze occupied the State Chancellery. She will remain there before January 4.