Kofi Braiki

The election process in South Ossetia has over the last couple of months been confronted with some difficulties. However, Friday’s event where the self-proclaimed presidential candidate Alla Jioyeva was hospitalized after the authorities raided her office has to be regarded as something far more serious than ‘some difficulties’.

Although the raid allegedly was justified because Jioyeva had refused to cooperate as witness in a court proceeding, more issue’s regarding the presidential election race have to be taken into account to get a fuller understanding of the underlying objectives and possible impact of the raid and Jioyeva’s subsequent hospitalization.

The unrecognized territory held elections in November, which resulted into an unrest in the region. With a stand-off between the two main candidates after both proclaimed to have won, only one received an ‘official’ recognition by former president Kokoity and the Kremlin. Jioyeva decided to take her discontent to the streets, and the elections were annulled with mediation by Russian officials.

Former president Eduard Kokoity showed early on he was not keen on the female candidate. He stated that it is ‘ruled out’ that a woman should become South Ossetia’s next president: “Женщина – президент? Это исключено. Кавказ есть Кавказ…” which roughly translates to: ‘Women as president? It’s ruled out. The Caucasus is the Caucasus’. In essence favoring moscow-backed male candidate Anatoly Bibilov.

The mediated agreement provided for new elections in March, however, recently Jioyeva decided that she felt the new elections were ‘illegal’ and she called upon the fellow candidates to drop out and give her the title which she deserved. On January 30th she announced to have her presidential inauguration this last Friday – just before the authorities raided her office. Bibliov withdrew his candidacy on February 6th, however, called upon ‘other’ candidates, referring to Jioyeva, to refrain from unconstitutional actions – in other words, her self-proclaimed inauguration.

In an article on civil.ge Paata Zaakereishvili explains how Jioyeva’s move distanced herself from her former allies:

Jioyeva’s decision to inaugurate herself forced some of her key allies to distance from her, including Anatoly Barankevich and Jambolat Tedeev; after that, Zakareishvili argues, Jioyeva herself sensed she was losing ground, including losing popular support among the locals in Tskhinvali.

Jioyeva was diagnosed with hypertensive crisis, which could lead to a stroke. It seems likely the stress got to her and she was physically unable to handle the amount of stress the raid brought with it.

Jioyeva’s supporters argue it is former president Kokoity who was behind the raid:

Jioyeva’s supporters said that employees of “state protection service”, which is believed to be still under Kokoity’s de facto control, were seen among the law enforcement officer who arrived in Jioyeva’s office to take her for “interrogation as a witness” in connection to post-election street protest rallies late last year.

Although this is speculation and it is hard to provide hard evidence supporting the claims, it does not seem unlikely – as Kokoity had made clear he did not want to see a woman as president.

However, despite who was behind the raid, it is eminent that the current developments are threatening stability in the breakaway region. Something which both Russia and Georgia should be worried about.

For those keeping an eye out for these sort of things, The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison and Commentary Magazine’s Seth Mandel are having a spirited exchange about the merits  of Georgian NATO membership. Unsurprisingly, Mandel thinks its a good idea and Larison is somewhat less enthusiastic.

I’m not going to be that guy and address every point each of them make with my own comments, but suffice to say that they both raise relevant (and interesting!) arguments about whether or not Georgia ought to be brought into NATO. But I do want to focus on one particular aspect of their conversation: Georgia’s democracy.

Mandel writes:

Larison suggests Georgia isn’t democratic enough for NATO. But it’s hardly Belarus, let alone Ukraine. And isn’t that why we have membership action plans in the first place? No one is suggesting we leave NATO’s front door wide open for just anyone to waltz in. They have to earn it. And isn’t the prospect of NATO membership a better way to encourage such democratization than leaving such nations to Russia’s sphere of influence? Again, I give you Belarus.

A quick point, here. No, Georgia is not Belarus. And no, it’s not Ukraine, either, but that’s beecause Ukraine has already had a free election between relatively matched political factions and a subsequently peaceful (relatively) transfer of power. Georgia, need I remind, has not. Of course, Georgia has managed to move ahead of Ukraine in terms of governance and the strength of the state, but Freedom House rates Georgia and Ukraine [.pdf] equally as “partly free” with scores of 4 (political rights) and 3 (civil liberties) out of a scale of 1-7 (7 being worst). And Ukraine’s score — unlike Georgia’s, which has largely remained stagnant — follows a precipitous drop, having once been listed as “free” between 2005 and 2009.

But enough about Ukraine. The point is to show that Georgia, even though Misha isn’t a scary, old-school oligarch like Viktor Yanukovich, remains deeply flawed and far from the “beacon of liberty” as christened by former President Bush. The Georgian government, however, has been uniquely successful in branding itself in the West as being more politically progressive and open than it really is. President Saakashvili even has the audacity to tell Foreign Policy’s The Cable that the Kremlin is blind to the Russian people’s desire for change as his government scrambles to undermine Georgia’s own burgeoning opposition and rigs the system to their favor.

Of course, Mandel does point out that NATO should be used as an incentive for further democratization — and I think he’s ultimately correct — but I get the sense that most talk of Georgia (especially on the mainstream and neoconservative right) is this badly mistaken narrative of Georgia the lonely democracy; Georgia the last bastion of freedom; Georgia the bright beacon of supply side economics. But that’s not Georgia. Georgia is not a democracy — not yet. It’s not particularly free, either — politically or economically. Sure, Georgia isn’t Russia (yet), but is that the measuring stick we’re using these days?

Georgia has too many fans and not enough friends. Those who advocate for Tbilisi’s Euro-Atlantic ambitions, as I have done in the past, need to be at least equally and probably more insistent about Georgia’s undeniably concerning record. Will the prospect of NATO membership help incentivize democracy-building in Georgia? I think it would, but cheering on Tbilisi for a record that doesn’t exist is disingenuous and ultimately unhelpful. Worse, it falsely lumps support for Georgia as being an occupation limited to a certain ideological persuasion, which is the last thing the country needs.

I think there are some great arguments to be made in favor of Georgian NATO membership, but those need to be preceded by a clear recognition that Georgia has some very extensive and very serious work that it needs to do. Until that happens, cheering on Georgian membership in NATO is not only unhelpful for the Atlantic alliance, but particularly Georgia’s embattled opposition.

Need a roadmap? The Atlantic Council’s positive but brutally frank assessment of Georgia’s status is a good place to begin.

The fight for power in Georgia has crossed the ocean. Rising opposition leader Bidzina Ivanishvili criticized Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s “regime” in U.S. newspapers while the latter was meeting with American President Barack Obama in the White House on January 30. Obama told the press after the meeting that the two leaders discussed “the importance of making sure that minorities are respected; the importance of police and a system of rule of law that is being observed–the kinds of institution-building that is going to make an enormous difference in the future of not just this generation of Georgians, but future generations of Georgians.”

He added that the United States expects that parliamentary elections later this year will be free and fair, leading to a formal transfer of power that would “solidify many of these reforms that have already taken place”.

While Saakashvili was being praised by Obama for his democratic reforms, Bidzina Ivanishvili, his biggest rival in the upcoming October elections, tried to draw the attention of the U.S. public to the political situation in Georgia.

On the day Saakashvili and Obama met, Ivanishvili took out a full-page ad in the New York Times and Washington Post to run his open letter to Obama. In his letter called “Georgia at the Crossroads,” he stated that Georgia now has “a super-centralized, almost neo-Bolshevik style of governance, which exhausted itself long ago, and not only impedes the nation’s progress, but also jeopardizes its own achievements.” Ivanishvili also expressed his hope that the United States would help to secure free and fair parliamentary elections.

Strengthening cooperation in the defense sphere was one of the main topics of the meeting. “If in previous years we were talking only about anti-terrorism operations and our participation in peacekeeping operations in Iraq or Afghanistan, now we are talking about cooperating with the United States on developing Georgia’s self-defense capabilities. We will continue working on these issues; very concrete meetings have been planned and this is a new, higher level of our cooperation in military and security issues,” Saakashivili told Georgian journalists after the meeting.

However, in his letter, Ivanishvili calls Georgian and American cooperation in Afghanistan a “necessary sacrifice made to promote global security.” According to him, a Georgian-American partnership should exclude discussion of political and military mistakes on the Georgian side, including the 2008 war with Russia.

Inga Popovaite is a Lithuanian freelance journalist based in Tbilisi, Georgia. She  holds a bachelor’s degree in Information and Communication from the University of Klaipeda

Boris Akunin, a well-known Russian writer whose real name is Grigory Chkartishvili (who has also written under the pseudonyms Anatoly Brusnikin and Anna Borisova), has been one of the main leading opposition figures in the recent protests. As one of the leaders of the recently created cultural-oppositional collective ‘League of Voters’, Akunin has been a powerful voice in condemning the election results and a fierce promoter of openess in the democratic process.

In a recent article by Akunin on TOL, he argues that although he is not a politician, merely a writer, he nevertheless believes he should stand up for free and fair elections:

I think that in 2012 Moscow (and Russia as a whole) will be the most interesting and important place on the planet. Just as a quarter century ago, during Perestroika, the eyes of the world will be upon us. The battle between a newly awakened civil society and an authoritarian regime is a thrilling spectacle to observe.

Two Russias will fight it out – the democratic and the “arrestocratic.”

Obviously, our beloved Vladimir Putin has not been charmed by the organisation or its goals, even going so far as insulting the members of the group. Or, more specifically, Boris Akunin.

At a recent press conference Vladimir Putin, enraged by a question from Echo Moskvy, made a rather long comment on the fact that Akunin, as an ‘ethnic Georgian’ would have other motives to be against the regime.

You know there are various motives based on which people act, [...] For example, we all love writer Akunin. He writes very interesting things… As far as I know, he is an ethnic Georgian.

Oh no, he is an ethnic Georgian? Brrrrr!

But, oops, Mr Putin (to channel the singular Governor Rick Perry): while Boris Akunin’s real name might be Georgian — his father is indeed Georgian — he himself was born in Russia and his mother is a Jewish-Russian. Would you hold that against him too? Or, as Akunin said himself: “Perhaps I am also a Jewish agent?”

Don’t get them started, Bora.

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Tbilisi’s most gorgeous square is about to be ‘renovated’, and as it turns out the government has some wild ideas on how this should be done.

This is what Gudiashvilis square looks like now:

And this is what they are planning to do with it:

I am flabbergasted, speechless, no words.

What is their aim? Trying to get rid of the things which actually attract tourists?

UPDATE: In reaction to society’s outcry via social networks, city hall issued a statement that they do want to keep the historical facade’s of Gudiashvili square and they distance themselves from the above taken picture. According to the statement, the tender won by Austria based architects Zechner&Zechner ought to be seen as a proposed idea, rather than the actual plan. The statement says: ‘the competition is only conceptual, not in an architectural sense.’

Check out this article on Democracy and Freedom Watch on freedom of media in Georgia based on a Transparency International report on it – mainly focusing on the advertisement market and the political ties.

Georgian media is at the mercy of a murky network of friends that extends into both government and the private sector, used for exerting political influence over what is being reported.

[...]

It concludes that there is a marked lack of competition in the sector. It mostly revolves around a small network of friends, relatives and business partners of advertisement czar Davit Kezerashvili, the former Defense Minister who led the army into the unsuccessful war against Russia in 2008.

(read more…)

However, the real question should be, now these ties are exposed: why does Georgia seem to have these tight networks which lead to a major amount of deals for ‘friends’, and secondly, how can this be changed for the better.

In any society it is not uncommon that networks exist where friends help each other out (who does not do their share of networking?), but one should not forget that it depends to which extend and which negative effects these relationships have. As many of evo’s readers know, in Georgia these networks are rather tight and social mobility within society is, as a result, rather low.

Another interesting phenomena in Georgia is the fear of critique, anyone voicing concern is being called upon as ‘against’ the person/government – emotions can run high. Any media outlet voicing their opinion not inline with the ruling opinion of the network in control of the advertisements, thus is likely to be regarded as enemy/dangerous/stupid, and therefore the network will make sure they are not receiving the contracts.

Both things combined are not bad in itself, but can have disastrous results to a democracy when spinning out of control: a monopoly on advertisements (=income for media outlets) is therefore one, as it results in a very difficult environment to economically survive in.

An interesting research would be to get to understand and grasp the cultural and historical foundations for this, in order to not only explain the phenomena, but also to make the correct policy advise in order to create a more free and fair society.

Check out the graph TI made on the dominant network:

The breakaway region South Ossetia has fallen into unrest after the election victory of Alla Jioyeva is not being recognized by current President Eduard Kokoity. Kokoity, who already before the election results made it clear he would never agree on Jioyeva becoming President as she is a woman, is being supported by a court ruling annulling the election results.

The following vid shows how supporters of Jioyeva are holding a rally and how shots are fired. Although the shots were fired in the air and apparently were accidentally started, it does show the volatility of the situation.

For a full overview and updates on the situation follow civil.ge or for a minute-to-minute update follow kavkaz-uzel.