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Georgia: Saakashvili Manipulates his Return to Presidency

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  • Georgia: Saakashvili Manipulates his Return to Presidency

    Mainstream, India
    Mainstream, Vol XLVI, No 15
    March 29 2008


    Georgia: Saakashvili Manipulates his Return to Presidency
    Saturday 29 March 2008, by Mansoor Ali



    While the US position in the former Soviet republics, which once
    constituted the formidable USSR before the 1991 disintegration, has
    considerably weakened over the years, Georgia has, in its latest
    presidential election in January this year, witnessed the return to
    power of President Saakashvili, perhaps the most brazenly loyal
    friend of Washington in the region whose antipathy to Moscow does not
    bear repetition.

    This unrepentant pro-American head of state, whose Georgian
    citizenship itself is in doubt in view of his proximity to the US
    leadership, mounted every form of propaganda and administrative
    pressure on the electorate to win the election. But those did not
    succeed; so he finally managed to emerge victorious in the first
    round of the presidential poll through ballot-rigging on a massive
    scale. Without waiting for the counting of votes from even 100
    polling stations he declared himself the President of Georgia once
    again, thereby fuelling wide resentment among his political
    adversaries and opponents.

    The hollowness of the election process has been exposed by not only
    the Opposition leaders but impartial foreign - Western - observers as
    well. According to a noted Opposition leader, G. Yaindrava, `the
    originals of the Election Commission's protocols do not coincide with
    the papers concocted in the Central Election Commission'; by way of
    illustration projecting Saakashvili's falsification, Yaindrava
    mentioned the results of voting in the provinces populated by
    Azerbaijanis and Armenians - the pro-US leader received almost 100 per
    cent votes here although it's quite well known that he is not popular
    in those areas.

    Some European Union (EU) observers feel that the election campaign
    witnessed many violations from the side of the ruling party:
    everywhere administrative and financial resources were
    indiscriminately used to garner votes while at the same time there
    was tight control over the mass media and irrefutable facts surfaced
    about genuine voters being frightened away from exercising their
    franchise. On the other hand, as compared to Saakashvili the
    Opposition candidates had little scope and opportunity to conduct
    effective propaganda campaigns.

    Several groups of foreign observers, including those from the
    International Expert Centre for Electoral Systems (Israel),
    Independent American Centre of Political Monitoring (USA), Central
    European Group for Political Monitoring (Great Britain) were of the
    considered view that the elections could not be characterised as
    democratic, transparent, legal and in conformity with the European
    principles of democracy and the norms of international law. According
    to German political analyst E. Schnaider, `the elections could not be
    called legitimate, even with great reserve. People were threatened
    and forced to give their votes to Saakashvili.'

    Then we have the case of Dieter Boden, a prominent German diplomat
    heading the OSCE Observer Mission in Georgia. A day after the voting,
    the OSCE observers gave a positive evaluation of the election.
    Subsequently Boden said in an interview to the newspaper Frankfurter
    Rundschau: `We are receiving more and more reports from our observers
    about widespread and serious violations during vote counting in the
    election. These include gross, careless and deliberate rigging, for
    example, in Batumi.' In his opinion, the situation in the Georgian
    Central Election Commission (CEC) was one of chaos.

    On why the OSCE gave a positive assessment of the Georgian
    presidential poll a day after the vote, Boden proferred an
    explanation even if it did not carry much conviction: `Those serious
    violations were not yet exposed by that time.'

    He also urged the Georgian Opposition to submit to the OSCE and the
    Georgian CEC the facts they have at their disposal confirming
    electoral rigging. He felt the CEC was the only body which could
    revise the election results and declare them invalid.

    Boden's credentials are impeccable: he enjoys the reputation of being
    Georgia's loyal friend, a person well acquainted with the situation
    in the country: he headed the OSCE mission is Georgia in the
    mid-nineties; he was a Special Representative of the UN
    Secretary-General in Georgia from 1992 to 2002 - currently he is
    working for an international observer mission of the OSCE Office for
    Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

    However, whatever Boden may belatedly say, the Western community
    members from the US have preferred to `close their eyes' to the
    electoral violations and finally accepted Saakashvili's victory.





    THERE is yet another striking development: according to the country's
    Central Election Commission (CEC), 48 per cent of the voters took
    part in the elections and of them 72.5 per cent voted in favour of
    the country joining the NATO, that is, only about one-third of
    Georgians want their country to join the Alliance - this exposes the
    failure of the massive pro-NATO propaganda of the state's power
    structures, a majority of the political parties, NGOs; it further
    brings out the unreliability of the research conducted by several
    sociological services claiming that 80 to 90 per cent of the Georgian
    population was ready to vote for the NATO. In this context Georgia's
    expeditious entry into the NATO is fraught with unforeseen
    consequences: observers maintain that such a move on the part of
    Tbilisi would not only worsen Moscow's present ties with Washington
    but also lead to internal violence, problems with regard to the
    legality of deployment of American contingents on Georgian territory
    and counteractions and counter-campaigns against full scale
    deployment of American bases in the country.

    Nonetheless, what is beyond dispute is a weakening of Saakashvili's
    position. This is an objective reality without any subjective
    colouring or bias manifest in the presidential poll outcome. The
    Opposition, on its turn, is able to comprehend its own power to shape
    events and has thus started preparations to seriously compete with
    the ruling party taking into consideration the forthcoming
    parliamentary elections in Georgia to be held shortly.

    Meanwhile there is another apprehension: wide international
    acceptance of the presidential election result and direct support to
    the Saakashvili regime from the side of the West could influence his
    line of action in relation to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Observers
    and analysts fear Saakashvili may regard the Western behaviour as
    giving him a right to permissiveness and he could thus be prompted to
    take a risk in using force in order to solve the problem of
    `separatist regions'. Such apprehensions and fears cannot possibly be
    brushed aside.

    http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article608 .html
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