Giorgi Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
“Thank you everybody who wished Happy Birthday to me. Next year see you in Georgia!” the former president Mikheil Saakashvili posted on his Facebook page. The statement provoked a furious reaction in Georgia, even though in fact Saakashvili used an ancient Jewish greeting for political PR: “Next year see you in Jerusalem!”
While president, he had many times stated things like that: “Next year see you in Abkhazia!”, but he always stressed that the sense of these words is a spell, his dear dream, and his striving to return to his homeland.
It seems the words by the former president shouldn’t be interpreted literally. Four criminal cases have been initiated against him in Georgia, and a fifth one is going to be initiated – falsification of evidence in the case of the strange death of the former premier Zurab Zhvania. However, everybody who knows Mikheil Saakashvili personally and knows his style states that he never says something for the sake of a witty remark, his “spontaneous” and “emotional” statements are well thought out and contain particular messages for the target audience.
This time the audience is the roughly 20% of the population who vote for the party of the former president of the United National Movement, as well as the “hesitating electorate”, which is ready to support a strong and self-confident leader if he begins to win.
After his escape from the country a few days before the inauguration of the new president in November 2013, Saakashvili didn’t make any statements for a long time, didn’t criticize the Georgian authorities, including the actual head of the country Bidzina Ivanishvili, i.e. he created an image of “indifference” and “neutrality” toward the political processes in the country.
Three factors predetermined his successful return to the media space. First of all, the Georgian authorities began to initiate criminal cases against the former president, and “the American hermit” understood clearly that in seclusion he couldn’t create an image of a martyr and a repressed person for his opposition views through a “hermitage.” Without this image he could be expelled from the U.S., as the Americans don’t need “a former partner”, whatever his previous merits.
Secondly, the events in Ukraine took place, where Saakashvili and his team of young reformers turned into starts. They are incited to give interviews to popular TV-channels, make recommendations, are appointed to important positions in the Ukrainian government, i.e. promote their reputation in Georgia.
Thirdly, Saakashvili is inspired by the obvious weakening of the ruling Georgian Dream coalition. Irakli Alasania’s Free Democrats have shifted to the opposition; the Republicans make radical anti-government statements. It means the Dream is actually collapsing. And all public opinion polls confirm that voters don’t like the dissolution. The ruling party’s rating is decreasing. Saakashvili is gaining an image as a strong leader who temporarily lost power. The next parliamentary elections will take place in 2016. Saakashvili doesn’t want to wait for so long. Moreover, the elections cannot cancel criminal cases. Only a revolution is able to cancel them. In a recent interview, the former president said: “The current government cannot be replaced by classic democratic elections.” It means he and his team can return to office only due to another revolution, when all court sentences and prosecution resolutions become meaningless.
According to Interior Minister Alexander Chikaidze, “the nationals” are inviting veterans of the Maidan from Kiev – experts in street fighting. They are even collecting tyres to burn them on Rustaveli Avenue, if necessary.
Thus, Saakashvili and his “guards” are looking forward to a serious mistake by the 33-year-old prime minister or a social explosion to turn the ancient greeting “next year see you in Jerusalem” into a definite plan for a peaceful and bloodless overthrow. If it comes to a Maidan in Georgia, the current authorities won’t use force, i.e. they will give up peacefully.
The only preventative measure that can prevent these scenarios is the return of Bidzina Ivanishvili to office. The Georgian media are discussing his recent statement that, if the situation became really bad, he wouldn’t exclude such a possibility.
