Georgia celebrates the 8th anniversary of the so-called ‘rose revolution’. The leaders of this revolution, however, stopped being a team long ago. Ex-PM Zurab Zhvaniya is dead, ex-parliamentary speaker Nino Burjanadze left Saakashvili’s team in 2008 after her allies were not accepted to the ruling party and became an open opposition figure after the August2008 war with Russia. Erosi Kitsmarishvili, ex-owner of the independent ‘Rustavi-2’ TV-channel that actually made the revolution possible, sold the channel in 2004 and left for US. He returned later, but only to fight the ‘autocratic regime of Saakashvili’.
VK correspondent asked Tbilisi experts and ‘rose revolution’ ideologists who are now in opposition to comment on this process. Today we present you his interview with Nino Burjanadze.
On her role in the revolution:
The authorities tend to forget the part that I played in those events. They cut me out of documentaries shown by governmental channels, but I can’t say that I’m terribly concerned.
On her hopes during the revolution:
None of the revolutionary promises is fulfilled. We promised a free democratic state, not autocracy. We are even less free now than we were before the revolution. We don’t have an independent judicial system, human rights are being abused.
On the results of the revolution:
Of course, we reached certain success. There are some infrastructure improvements, but at what cost? Corruption is defeated – on the level of police officers… but there’s still corruption amongst political elites, at it is spread at such a scale that has never been seen before. Yes, new roads are being constructed, but 2 thirds of Georgian population are beyond the poverty line. And we’ve lost 20% of our country’s territory. So as you see it’s ridiculous to triumph over our ‘achievements’.
On the necessity of revolution:
The revolution itself was inevitable. The election fraud was the last straw. But now we live in a less democratic county when we used to in Shevarnadze’s era, incredible as it sounds. He achieved a great progress in the field of foreign politics, but Saakashvili lost it all.
Yes, the country was stagnant and corrupt, and that is why the revolution was necessary. The very existence of our state was threatened. But Saakashvili and his allies are to drunk on success and power to see that they’ve already crossed the line and turned our sate into autocracy.
On her feelings after the revolution:
When I see today’s news on our state channels, I have a feeling that I’ve returned to the USSR: the façade is much better than the reality. Yes, they use modern PR technologies, but bolshevist mentality is still there. We live in a modernized mini-USSR, and there is absolutely no democracy in Georgia.
