Now the elections in Georgia have just gone and the results came to no surprise to anyone: it is Mikheil Saakashvili who is going to swear as the country’s new president due to the support of more than 90% of voters. And although there have been some 5 other candidates running for presidency the elections could have clearly be labeled as ‘A Race with One Horse’.
This fact is hardly of any significance, especially when there is no one in the country to question the fairness and freedom of those elections. Even that in some places such as Marneuli and Khashuri some various violations of the election process and procedures have been registered, this could in no way have changed the final result, which is that Georgia has ultimately a legitimate President ready and expected to form the new administration and undertake radical steps.
However, after the normal euphoria surrounding the elections has gone, the time for reflection has arrived and surely, it brings about lots of difficult questions that need urgent and direct answers.
By and large the country is economically devastated, there is less than half a million in the budget to cover all the needy expenses: paying citizens the salaries, and giving the pensions to the people who otherwise will hardly prove ready to bear the burden of social and economic reforms necessary to improve their living standard.
Not to speak for the money necessary for restoring or even rebuilding of all the institutions that former governments have made redundant. Surely to quickly reorganize the economy of the country that during the last years has totally turned itself into shadow business.
Such promises have been delivered by Mr. Saakashvili during his election campaign. People know and expect now effective fight against organized crime, quick reduction if not total abolition of corruption, regaining the control over breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia and their re-integration into the country’s normal life. Most of all, however, people in Georgia expect quick raise in their standard of living along with the establishment of legitimate and effective state institutions to safeguard the civic values in the country, so often talked about after the November velvet revolution.
Do those promises and expectations form a realistic agenda to accomplish? Only a minute after the polls have been closed Mr. Saakashvili did express his gratitude to all the people for his victory stressing on the fact that Georgians have proved to be a real civil society. Saakashvili said that such a high voter turnout has been never encountered so far after Georgia has obtained its independence.
This fact, quite telling by itself about the popular hopes for urgent changes and better life, would hardly however make Mr. Saakashvili’s life easier. Since he himself has made those promises to win him the presidency but has so far spoke little about the ways those tasks would be achieved.
Abolition of corruption would need radical steps. That would firstly mean to deprive many influential people from their growing wealth and power, which would certainly meet with tremendous difficulties and opposition. And it is hardly unlikely that many people who voted and supported Mr. Saakashvili to bit by bit go and rank among his political opponents. Now in Georgia no one talks about opposition but for how long that would be the case, it is still too difficult to say.
Getting back secessionist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is certainly a step that needs Russia’s good will and consent. And Russia is certainly keen to keep Georgia within the sphere of its influence, which somehow does not cope much with the pro-western orientation of Mr. Saakashvili. So what sort of policy and leverage would the new President be capable to offer to fulfill his promises in that respect?
Improving economic situation and increasing people living standard, however, might prove the most difficult task to achieve. With a completely devastated infrastructure, non-existing market mechanisms, striving and overgrowing shadow economy and a foreign debt amounting to USD 1.7 billion, changing Georgia might need a magician rather than a reformist.
Reorganizing economy will most probably bring about to even more painful steps that no one here in the country seems to be talking now about and feels ready to put up with.
Taking radical steps would mean quick implementation of law and law-enforcement institutions. Those institutions need legitimacy and it is mainly by the proper division of power – executive, legal and legislative – to accomplish it. This in other words means changes in constitution. And also to decide what sort of a state, Presidential or Parliamentarian, Georgia would be.
Such a decision may also question the present harmonious relations among Georgian leading reformers. So will their union last like it is now, once the administration is being formed and time for concrete painful steps arrives. This is difficult to predict now though it is clear that future will bring about the existence of new parties, both in position and opposition.
Mr. Saakashvili will need lots of co-thinkers and supporters in Parliament and in all local and regional authorities. Which means that he would have to quickly alter the current situation by ousting many people who still hold important positions and could be a challenge to the needed reforms. And Parliamentary elections are just the first step, as legitimacy of power needs also its institutionalization. As to the birth of future opposition as well.
In other words, what quickly comes to the agenda of Georgia’s new President is a very clear vision of how to provide the necessary checks and balances to maintain and safeguard pluralist democracy in the country, find the right balance in the foreign relations both with Russia and the West, and at the same time bringing about definite improvement in the living standard of the people.
Whatever steps might this vision be comprised of, future developments in Georgia will be connected to lots of changes and painful reforms. Popular expectations run always for quick and positive alternations, and hence people are hardly likely to have too much of long-term patience. So another part of Mr. Saakashvili’s masters-skills would be to find the right approach and channel the mass enthusiasm of the Presidential elections into much more a realistic direction and scale. How would he cope with those challenges it is not easy to say now.
It is the joy of the victory and the atmosphere of hopes that prevail. The elections are gone now: so long live the elections! Parliamentary polls are just ahead.
Danail Danov and Ognian Zlatev are Sofia-based freelanced reporters, and both work for Media Development Center, Sofia, Bulgaria.
