Rose revolution turns out to be mostly brown

[Edric O]

Four years after the "rose revolution" in Georgia that supposedly replaced a corrupt ex-Soviet bureaucrat with a freedom-loving, pro-Western liberal, what does the freedom-loving liberal do?

He sends the police to crack down on a peaceful protest similar to the one that brought him to power in the first place, he takes an opposition television station off the air and he declares a state of emergency:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7083911.stm

No doubt the West will still acclaim Saakashvili as a champion of democracy, even as his forces beat or imprison anyone who opposes him or his policy of radical privatization. Because, obviously, all such opponents are evil Russian spies.

[Andrew]

Funny in these countries that as soon as someone protests they call a state of emergency and cut all communication. Same thing happening in Iran. And previously Burma (no news about Burma lately).

They are all claiming that an imminent threat is about to occur which justifies the emergency state.

[Caid Ivik]

As the border of Russia and Georgia (and Abkhazia) is quite densely populated by military in general, I wouldn't be so surprised, if that Saakashvili's russophobia had more than just demagogic point.

[Tatar Khan]

Well that is how it supposed to be, no surprise here. The orange and rose evolution were supported by the west because they undermined Russia's hold on the region thus transferring those countries from the Russian camp to the western camp. A gain for the west, since Russian will come back as a power and  so less allies it will have the less its political power would be.

Abhazia has military in it due to peacekeeping mission. Abhazia wanted to separate from Georgia, Georgia said no and civil war almost broke out, the Russian military forces moved in to separate the two sides. this is of course been exploited by Saakashvili for his own purposes. The problem that his pro-Western regime has not brought any benefit to Georgia, instead Georgia lost all its preferential trade arrangements with Russia. His government has not managed to resolve the problem with Abhazia.

For the record Ukraine is not doing any better either, the Parliament has been dissolved because it did not agree with the president and because prime minister of it was president chief opponent in presidential election. Now after the new elections the make of the parliament doesn't change. But the west was quite about the whole affair and the how the Ukrainian president "the champion of the west" was harassing and dismissing Supreme Court judges just to get the right to order the Parliament out when ever he feels like it.

[Edric O]

As the border of Russia and Georgia (and Abkhazia) is quite densely populated by military in general, I wouldn't be so surprised, if that Saakashvili's russophobia had more than just demagogic point.

Obviously the Russians don't like Saakashvili and would like to see him removed from power, but the fact that someone out there hates you is not sufficient justification for cracking down on peaceful protests and crushing free speech. Every government has its enemies, but if they all acted like Saakashvili there wouldn't be any democracy anywhere.

Having said that, it turns out that Saakashvili backed down and agreed to hold early elections in a couple of months. Now let's see if he actually keeps his promise. I suspected he will, but I also suspect the elections will be full of fraud.

I agree with Colonel_here, by the way. The results of the "orange revolution" in Ukraine turned out to be the same as those of the "rose revolution" in Georgia: A corrupt, authoritarian, capitalist, pro-Western government replaced a corrupt, authoritarian, capitalist, pro-Russian government. The difference between Georgia and Ukraine is that the two sides are still fighting it out in Ukraine with no end in sight. The unfortunate thing is that no matter who wins, the people lose.

[Caid Ivik]

I don't know if there is any government in the Europe present, which you wouldn't label as "corrupt, authoritarian, capitalist" (excluding Slovakia, where we have socialists right now...)

Situations of Ukraine and Georgia are very different, in the former case you have a large country with deeply differentiated regions, also there is still nationalism and religious securitization present, without a clearly dominant movement: it is only very roughly reflected on trio Juscenko-Tymoscenkova-Janukovyc. Georgia, on the other hand, had a very strong position which could make him a little Putin, luring foreign capital by an era of stability. It could be said that Ukraine is after Kucma politically liberal, but unstable and thus economically stagnating; while Georgia retains more of the russian authoritarian style, but its economics are being reformed and improving (at least statistically).

[Edric O]

I don't know if there is any government in the Europe present, which you wouldn't label as "corrupt, authoritarian, capitalist".

Actually, there are plenty. All European governments are capitalist, of course (some more than others), but the Western ones are in general neither corrupt nor authoritarian, and the Eastern ones are extremely corrupt but not really authoritarian.

Situations of Ukraine and Georgia are very different, in the former case you have a large country with deeply differentiated regions, also there is still nationalism and religious securitization present, without a clearly dominant movement: it is only very roughly reflected on trio Juscenko-Tymoscenkova-Janukovyc. Georgia, on the other hand, had a very strong position which could make him a little Putin, luring foreign capital by an era of stability. It could be said that Ukraine is after Kucma politically liberal, but unstable and thus economically stagnating; while Georgia retains more of the russian authoritarian style, but its economics are being reformed and improving (at least statistically).

Surprisingly enough, I agree with you. :) Yes, there are clear differences between Ukraine and Georgia - most obviously there is a huge difference in size; then there is the fact that Ukraine is much more ethnically diverse than Georgia, with a far larger Russian minority; then, of course, there is the political situation. Ukraine is still bitterly divided between Yuschenko and Yanukovic (with Yulia Tymoschenko in the middle), while Saakashvili has an iron grip over Georgia.

So yes, you're absolutely right that Ukraine and Georgia are different. They do have at least one thing in common, though - Saakashvili and Yuschenko are quite similar politically.

[Tatar Khan]

The problem is that the two leaders thought that by going pro-West they would be able to get inside the western camp. They expected Americana and EU support. However those two are not stupid so they don't want to be too active in supporting these governments through economic aid, foreign capital investments, military aid because they don't want to antagonize Russia right now. They need Russia to be friendly, plus those countries are politically unstable.

Saakashvili thought that the west will be able to remove the peacekeeping force in Abhazia, but that is not happening.

Right now west needs Russia to be friendly to them so it will vote positive to sanctions against Iran.

I might even suppose that the West will let the Ukraine and Georgia fall in the Russian camp as along as they can get sanctions to get Iran under control.

[Tatar Khan]

Ok, something that was pointed out to me by my father was that Saakashvili called the election in January. This is a smart move by him because it makes him look like he is giving in to the people's demand at the same time he still has high chance of winning the elections. The reason is that there is little time left till January and so opposition leaders have very little time to put together some kind of elections campaign. In addition, as those opposing Saakashvili have many leaders they will vote for their leaders and so Saakashvili could still win resting on his supporters that are more of a single block rather than opposition that only united currently against him but have different agendas otherwise.