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BURJANADZE RETURNS?!
ZAAL ANJAPARIDZE,
Political analyst, Tbilisi
Georgian policy-makers quit politics and return to it differently and this heavily depends on their personality and circumstances, which are behind either their resignation or return.
Ex-chairwoman of the Georgian Parliament Nino Burjanadze who had scandalously quitted President Mikheil Saakashvili’s team right before the May 21, 2008 parliamentary elections, returned to politics the very way that was most expected from her cautious and pragmatic mind. Burjanadze decided not to create a new political party, as many had foretold after her departure. She chose to return to the politics in the most effective and safest way available in the current circumstances.
On July 7, Nino Burjanadze and her associates held the very modest presentation of the new Foundation for Democracy and Development (FDD). The Foundation claims quite generous and inoffensive aims like the development and consolidation of high political culture, formation of the independent media and courts, and other democratic attributes, the quality of which is “unsatisfactory” in Georgia now, according to Burjanadze.
However, among Georgian politicians and experts few doubt that the Foundation is just the first step to the creation of a political organization that will prepare ground for Burjanadze’s presidential campaign. Burjanadze herself makes no secret of her presidential ambitions and every time drops the hints about the possible political party creation.
Choosing a roundabout way back to the political life was most probably a forced step of her, taking into consideration the hostile attitude of Saakashvili’s ruling party to all the new strong opposition political leaders. The unsuccessful experience of Georgia’s ex-Minister of Defense and acknowledged opposition leader Irakli Okruashvili, who due to the Georgian authorities’ efforts quickly became an outlaw and then an émigré, had to become a lesson for others. That is why, proceeding from her past, personality and some external factors, Burjanadze did not (and could not) follow Okruashvili’s way. Unlike Okruashvili, who relied on home resources in general, Burjanadze has a serious advantage. She enjoys the substantial authority in the international circles, especially in the West. That is why the assumptions that Burjanadze’s “smooth” return to the political life is a part of the plan for “smooth” replacement of Saakashvili by another pro-Western, but much more even-tempered leader. It looks like Saakashvili’s team now creates serious problems for both Georgia and the West by its excessively radical policy. One of the alarming consequences of this policy for the West is a steady growth of anti-Western attitudes in Georgian society.
Burjanadze’s remarks and messages, made at the presentation of her Foundation, contained the consistent, but precise criticism of the authorities on the most vulnerable points. She said that the impulse given to the democratic development by the Rose Revolution in 2003 is now weakened, and the time has come to turn to an evolutionary way of development instead of revolutionary one. According to Burjanadze, it is impossible without a deep and objective analysis of the mistakes of the last four years. She pointed out the absence of the democratic process of decision and policy-making in Georgia. According to Burjanadze, the small group has monopolized Georgia’s politics and this process discredits the political development of the country. She also said about the slighting authorities’ relation to the middle and elder generations, which became the talk of the town after the Rose Revolution. The experience and opportunities of these people were wrongly ignored, Burjanadze stressed. Actually, she called this part of the society under her flags by this message. It is noteworthy, that aged people, including many of the mid-1990s high officials, prevailed at the Foundation’s presentation.
Burjanadze’s main messages to the general public at the presentation were the creation of a new model of the relations between the state and society, the creation of the conditions for irreversibility of democratic reforms, the creation of the feeling of safety among the citizens, who in her words “deserve much more” than they have. “What has happened to our still rudimentary democracy?” Burjanadze asked emotionally evidently alluding to Saakashvili and his team. Surely, the question was addressed to the external political circles too. Perhaps, Burjanadze is taking her first exams before them. But she has to pass the main exam in Georgia, and it contains both opportunities and dangers for her.
Burjanadze is the second after Irakli Okruashvili high-ranking politician in the “revolutionary” Georgian government, who has decided to switch to the opposition to the former companions-in arms. The triumvirate of the Rose Revolution has been finally destroyed leaving Saakashvili alone.
Perhaps by the end of the year we will learn how much heard and demanded “Burjanadze’s Messages to the People” happen to be. We’ll also see, whether Burjanadze has a potential to become a strong, independent and alternative political leader, and whether her Foundation becomes a new centre of mobilization of the society. The number of optimists and skeptics on this question is divided in approximately equal parts. Burjanadze’s tasks for the nearest months will most probably lie in the improvement of her image, clearing it, as much as it is possible, from the weight of the past and the attraction of the new allies. The return of Burjanadze will undoubtedly contribute to the new regrouping on the Georgia’s political scene.
July 11, 2008
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