SHOWDOWN UNDER THE SIGN OF RUSTAVI-2

The last few weeks have seen some exacerbation in the situation in Georgia. Meanwhile, internal pro-cesses going on in Azer-baijan's friendly neighbouring state have a hidden motive of a markedly geopolitical nature. 

The key figure in the confrontation inside Georgia is Rustavi-2, a TV company popular in the country. All that started from a ruling passed by the Tbilisi city court in October to arrest the property of the TV company Sakartvelo holding a controlling interest in Rustavi-2. It was based on a claim filed by businessman Kibara Khalvashi to regain his share in the company which he had given up in favour of the state back in 2006 under pressure from Georgia's then leadership led by Mikheil Saakashvili. In line with the court ruling, the share of the current owners of Rustavi-2 has also been arrested and the TV company's financial activity has been partly limited. 

In the first days of November, that very city court appointed temporary managers for Rustavi-2: the company's founder David Dvali and Revaz Sakevarishvili, former director of a rival channel, Imedi. This verdict came as a bombshell in the situation around Rustavi-2. Nika Gvaramia, the TV company's director general suspended from office by court, has described this decision as violating freedom of speech and accused the authorities of nothing less than committing a coup d'etat. Because "Any act of usurpation of power is a coup d'etat", he said. Specifying his accusation, Gvaramia told the name of the "usurper of power": it was ex-premier Bidzina Ivanishvili, the actual leader of the party in power, Georgian Dream (GD). 

However, the fire of mutual accusations flared up even more after Ukrainian media published audio records of conversations of Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's former president and incumbent governor of Odessa Region in Ukraine, with that very Nika Gvaramia, former head of the country's National Security Council Giga Bokeria as well as renowned singer Sopho Nizharadze. The records set off a high-profile scandal as they were about likely developments if the conflict between the Georgian authorities and Rustavi-2 TV channel followed a strong-arm scenario. Saakashvili called to make barricades at the entrance to Rustavi-2 and "keep riot police off the TV company's grounds". Putting up physical resistance to the authorities will lead to a revolution in Georgia, the ex-president said in the audio record. 

Another audio record has Georgian Security Council ex-secretary Bokeria promising Saakashvili to involve representatives of their party United National Movement (UNM) in defending Rustavi-2. It is appropriate to recall here that the media had earlier circulated information about Saakash-vili and Bokeria meeting at Istanbul airport on 22 October where they discussed plans for a coup in Georgia during actions in support of the beleaguered TV company. Lastly, the audio record of Saakashvili's conversation with Sopho Nizharadze features the ex-president speaking about bloodshed likely to start in Georgia. However, the singer herself has flatly denied the authenticity of that "secret material".

The Georgian authorities promptly launched investigation into a case of conspiracy aimed at forcible overthrow or seizure of state power. Georgian President Giorgi Margve-lashvili has made a statement that the era of revolutionary scenarios is over in the country and those planning such processes are totally isolated from society and political reality. 

Nika Gvaramia, one of the key persons involved in the scandal, has dismissed the authorities' conclusions that the TV company Rustavi-2 was planning a change of power through revolution. "Saakashvili is my friend," he said. "His positions are of interest to me but this does not mean that I accept all his positions". 

The former ruling party UNM has also rejected accusations of preparing a "revolutionary overthrow". David Bakradze, the leader of its parliamentary faction, has announced that the movement will struggle for power only within legal limits. "I want to state it strongly that we have never planned or are going to plan any violence. Our objective is to send this government home legitimately, constitutionally and through peaceful elections," he said. 

However, such assurances failed to convince the radical part of the opponents of Saakashvili's party. A few UNM offices in the capital, Tbilisi, have been attacked. In the opinion of the aggrieved side, those aggressive actions were carried out by youth groups linked to the ruling Georgian Dream.

In any event, it is obvious that the things going on in Georgia forebode bitter interparty struggle in the parliamentary polls to be held next autumn. It is not without reason that the Rustavi-2 management insists that the political processes going on in Georgia were initiated by the party in power in order to "close down the TV company" before the 2016 parliamentary polls. 

By all appearances, GD and the UNM that are going to be the frontrunners in the future election marathon and it is utterly difficult to predict its outcome. Especially in view of the latest social surveys showing that Georgia's former ruling force has a rating slightly higher than that of Georgian Dream. It is not because the UNM increased its electorate: it remains where it was, at a level of about 13-16 per cent. It is because Georgian Dream has lost 13 per cent of its supporters over the past few months and its rating dropped from 24 to 11 per cent. These data mean that, if parliamentary polls were held in Georgia right now, Saakashvili's party could have a real chance of winning and coming to power again. Such are the effects for Georgian Dream of its not quite successful economic policy, as well as some disorder in the ruling camp. An indicator of this can be seen in growing contradictions between the country's President Giorgi Margve-lashvili and Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, whom, it seems, even Bidzina Ivanishvili himself, the driving force behind Georgia's current leaders, cannot control. 

It would be appropriate to point out one remarkable thing in this context. At the height of the authorities' conflict with Rustavi-2, the head of government lambasted the opposition in an overly hard, even abusive manner and called the UNM a criminal structure. The first to object to him was none other than President Margve-lashvili. Instead of defusing the situation, the prime minister' statements are complicating it even more, he said. 

This is why it should not be ruled out that exacerbation in relations between Margvelashvili and Gariba-shvili will be a distinctive feature of the political spectacle Georgia is going to see in the near future. 

The latest events in Georgian politics are certainly not connected with internal factors alone. This is why, the struggle for influence on Rustavi-2, revelatory audio records and, in general, the preparations for the parliamentary polls to be held one year from now, are going on against the backdrop of powerful impact of foreign policy factors. 

In the first place, we should dwell on mutual relations between Georgia and Ukraine, which just recently appeared to be an almost absolutely idyllic picture. By all appearances, it was obviously spoiled by the "transfer" of Georgian ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili to Ukrainian politics, although it was not much welcomed by official Tbilisi. That is only natural, given that Mikheil Saakashvili is wanted in his homeland under four articles of the Criminal Code which entail up to 11 years in prison. Kiev refuses to extradite him to Tbilisi pleading that Saakashvili's persecution is politically motivated. The high profile scandal over the audio records revealing the Georgian ex-president's close ties with the Georgian opposition and his intention to unleash a new revolution in his homeland have added another shade of coldness in Kiev-Tbilisi relations. 

Immediately after the publication of the scandalous audio records, Georgian President Giorgi Margve-lashvili made a statement that it is impermissible for a "high-ranking official of a foreign state" to interfere in the domestic policy of the country. The Georgian Foreign Ministry presented a note of protest to the Ukrainian side and also assessed the Odessa governor's calls as "interference in the internal affairs of Georgia, which is inadmissible and at variance with the spirit of the relations of friendship and partnership existing between the two countries". Georgian Premier Irakli Garibashvili has sent a letter to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko expressing his concerns about the fact that Mikheil Saakash-vili's telephone conversations with the former head of the National Security Council of Georgia and Rustavi-2 director general contain concrete calls to antistate and violent actions. "Such actions are inconsistent with the friendly relations between Georgia and Ukraine," Garibashvili emphasized and called on the head of Ukraine to "take an interest in this issue". 

Georgian Defence Minister Tinatin Khidasheli voiced her position even more bluntly: "I strongly hope for Ukraine to explain it to us whether what their governor says is the state position of Ukraine or a statement by one defective person?" Meanwhile Georgian Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani has announced the start of the procedure to strip Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgian citizenship and the receipt of an official note from Kiev recalling that Georgia's former president has Ukrainian citizenship. "It is unimaginable that a Ukrainian citizen holding a high position in Georgia should be making anti-Ukrainian statements," Tea Tsulukiani emphasized. "Of course, the president of Ukraine and the authorities of that country should react".

As a matter of fact however, official Kiev has not reacted to what is happening so as to make the Georgian side feel satisfied with Ukraine's clarifications. It is no wonder, given that the current situation is not so much a product of Ukrainian-Georgian dialogue but rather one story in the ongoing confrontation between Russia and the West in the South Caucasus and Georgia is one of its epicentres. Noteworthy in this context is Nika Gvaramia's statement about "open cooperation" between Georgia's incumbent authorities and Russia's special services as "all those records were obtained by the FSB". 

The attitudes of Western circles to the situation around the TV channel close to Saakashvili should also be viewed in a geopolitical context. The OSCE and the US Department of State have expressed concerns about the trial of the Rustavi-2 case. The US ambassador to Georgia has said that the attempt to change the TV channel's board of directors has substantial political content. At the same time, he expressed "support for Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations" thereby in fact indicating Washington's aversion for some pro-Russian tendencies in the current policy of official Tbilisi.

Faced with strong pressure from the West, the Georgian authorities had to take a step back in their confrontation with Rustavi-2. The Tbilisi city court has revoked its decision and provisionally reinstated Nika Gvaramia in his office as director general of the TV channel. However it is wrong to view this step as the Georgian Dream government's strategic retreat and, even more so, as a back-down to Mikheil Saakashvili and his United National Movement. Interparty struggle will keep aggravating and, by all appearances, it will provide quite a saturated background for the parliamentary polls to be held one year from now which are utterly significant in the context of official Tbilisi's further strategy in domestic and foreign policies.