GEORGIA AGAIN AT A CROSSROADS

Former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashviliis wanted in Georgia, with the country's justice ministry declaring that an international manhunthas begun. The bank accounts of the former president, his property,the property of his wife Sandra Roelofs, as well as that of his mother and grandmother have been frozen. Saakashvili is charged with embezzlement of state funds, abuse of office in using force to disperse a protest on November 7, 2007, involvement in an assault on then-member of parliament Valery Gelashvili, the demiseof the television company Imedi, which was later completely taken away from its proprietor, opposition oligarch Arkady "Badri" Patarkatsishvili. Government funds totalling approximately 5m dollarswere reportedly used by Saakashvili to pay the salaries of a personal stylist and a masseur, yacht rental, cosmetic procedures, luxury items, artwork, and gifts to women. 

Secret documents have appeared in the media that allegedly prove that during Saakashvili's presidency his teamworked with the PR agency Kreab, whose chairmanwas Carl Bildt, who shortly thereafter became the foreign minister of Sweden and gave several of his employees foreign ministry positions. The issue is that,asAftonbladet reports, Kreab's services came at an unbelievably high cost of nearly 18m Swedish krona. When Swedish ambassador to Georgia Hans Gunnar Aden reported suspected fraud during the 2008 Georgian elections, it was hinted to him that Bildt was quite unhappy.  According to Ambassador Aden, it was very difficult reporting about events in Tbilisi because Bildt was such a close ally of Saakashvili.

Charges were filed against the ex-president back in June and could lead to eleven years of imprisonment, although the long arm of Georgian justice still cannot reach him.

In late August Saakashvili was in Turkey, where he held a consultation with fellow members of the United National Movement party. Prior to that he had spent time in Kiev.Not too long before that police on the Greek island of Samos detained a high-class yacht flying a British flag which Saakashvili had been using to travel to the Mediterranean. In mid-September it was revealed that Saakashvili had filed for an American work visa; he plans to give lectures at prestigious Tufts University in the United States. The former president is already giving well-paid public appearances, writing his memoirs, helping to create a think-tank in Washington, paying visits to such old patrons as Senator John McCain and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, meeting with former CIA chief David Petraeus at his home with a view on Manhattan, and is expecting a visit from Nicolas Sarkozy. There were earlier media reports claiming that proposals had been made for Saakashvili to occupy a high position in the current Ukrainian administration. All the same, Saakashvili decided to leave for the US and live there as a private citizen - at least for now. 

The pages of the New York Times feature a detailed description of how Saakashvili, in sunglasses, red shorts, and acid green sneakers, spends his days in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Williamsburg- he rides a bike, drinks coconut milk, buys books, gives out autographs and takes pictures with Georgian students. Their faces apparently lead Saakashvili to remember his student days in the 1990s: "I used to look at this place from Manhattan, it was such a pity, it was mafia, a place where hit men dump bodies." Now he sees a "jazzy atmosphere" and says that "Williamsburg is part of the democratic transformation." That is the Georgian ex-leader's take on the Brooklyn district of Williamsburg, which has undergone noticeable gentrification in the past few years - most of the lots once occupied by factories are now home to apartment houses. As the writer of the article notes, Saakashvili is clearly inclined to see "the building of democracy" in many things. He names the fashionable Cafe Mogador as his favourite because it is "very democratic." 

The New York Times report about Saakashvili's everyday life caused a firestorm in other media outlets. In Forbes Mark Adomanis sadly pointed out that Saakashvili has a long history of using the word "democracy" not to describe specific political systems, but as a "catch-all term" that can be roughly translated as "things that I like." The Forbes writer went on to express his confusion over how a person who is "one of the rock stars of the democracy promotion industry" has written a multitude of articles about the meaning of democracy and seen them published in the United States' most authoritative publications, in reality possesses "such a tenuous grasp of the concept to which he is so devoted."

The website VOX responded to the pieces in the New York Times and Forbesat the same time. Everything written about Saakashvili does not handle the real issue, the publication laments, noting that after his coming to power in the wake of the Rose Revolution, the former Georgian leader "arrested his critics" and "harassed the independent media", while his re-election campaign was "marred by abuse of state resources, media bias, harassment and intimidation of opposition supporters." The website cites a report by HumanRightsWatch, in which the Georgian government was accused of using force to suppress protestors. 

The ex-president claims that the charges are politically-motivated by order from Russia. "Ahead of the August war anniversary Putin could not have thought of a more desirable present than Georgian authorities ordering my arrest," declared Saakashvili. Information has leaked to the media stating that some in the United States think that the charges made against Saakashvili coincide suspiciously with his active stance on the Ukraine. 

All of these articles about the former Georgian president, otherwise seeming to have little in common, are linked by one factor - hints that Saakashvili wishes to return to Georgia, not as a prisoner, but as a victor. Commentators at the New York Times and Forbes are in no hurry to predict Georgia's political future. Besides, it is far from clear if the former president will have any role in it or not. 

The political climate in Georgia is currently so fragile that the current president and prime minister have fallen out over who will go to a UN climate change summit. In the end it was decided that premier Irakli Garibashvili will go, while presidentGiorgi Margvelashvili stated that his visit to the United Nations was deliberately disrupted by calculated efforts. "This is not the first time that we have been faced with the issue of what Georgia's current political system is and who is its head - the president or premier," writes the newspaperRezonansi. "Georgia is a semi-parliamentary republic, not a parliamentary republic, and Georgia has a president elected by the people, whereas in a parliamentary republic the president is usually appointed," laments Margvelashvili, adding that those who are expecting absolute harmony in the country's political system do not understand what democracy means. According to a number of experts, the chaos in the distribution of power leads to the administration and president sometimes acting independently of one another. Are the current Georgian authorities really haunted by the same problem that plagued the former president - setting out the systemic functions of democracy?

Meanwhile, former Georgian premier Bidzina Ivanishvili has expressed his support for the current prime minister and heavily criticized Margvelashvili, stating that the later sees the administration as full of rivals. Ivanishvili even hinted that some connection between the current president and Saakashvili's team is not out of the question.

Meanwhile, in an interview for the publication AliaGeorgian interior minister Alexander Chikaidze accused Mikheil Saakashvili of conspiracy. According to the minister, the ex-president intended to foster instability in the country and then carry out a government coup. Specific instructions had allegedly already been given to members of the National Movement and the leaders of a number of NGOs. The instability was reportedly to be caused by the organization of riots, protests, and provocations. The grounds for these actions were to such topics as the rise in crime, social problems (including the functioning of emergency services), economic problems, relations with Russia, and many others. Left Alliance leader Soso Shatberashvili had earlier said that Saakashvili had allocated millions of dollars to these goals. Shatberashvili also believes that the National Movement is aiding President Margvelashvili, who has defected to Saakashvili's side. 

At the same time, there is also the view that the situation in Georgia is still controlled by the creator of the "Georgian Dream", Bidzina Ivanishvili. In that case the confrontation is between forces loyal to the political tycoon and the team that continues to work for Saakashvili. 

Volumes of journalism and scholarship have been written about Georgia's rough and peculiar road to democracy. That is all in the past. A strange political stamp, if you like. However, despite the bright, rose-smelling facade, everything remains unclear. The small state has been too often tormented by military conflict and a troubled economy, sent careening from one extreme to the other, and occasionally Georgia even looked like a field for political experiments - especially when yet another round of people's revolution was replaced by people's protests against that very same revolution. One would like to see Georgia put this phase behind it, regardless of varying interpretations and nuances of the word "democracy."