END OF DREAM?

Georgia is going through a new political crisis. The ruling coalition Georgian Dream has broken up. In this connection, the Irakli Garibashvili government is undergoing a most serious test of strength.

Almost one year has passed since Mikheil Saakashvili's departure as president of Georgia. Georgian Dream's convincing victory in the 2012 parliamentary election seemingly opened up prospects for stable growth and consolidation of a political system oriented towards active integration into the Euro-Atlantic space. The recent signing of the Association Agreement between Georgia and the EU again confirmed the country's neoliberal development trend set out under President Saakashvili and continued by the new leadership headed by the Georgian Dream coalition. However the sudden government crisis showed that not everything was so smooth and clear in the political camp initially formed around the personality of the billionaire and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili and then strengthened by his proteges Giorgi Margvelashvili and Irakli Garibashvili who took the posts of Georgia's president and prime minister, respectively. 

However, from the very outset, there was one more significant figure in the configuration of the new Georgian government, Irakli Alasania. Possibly he joined the coalition together with the Our Georgia-Free Democrats party led by him with the intention to play his own game that does not quite comply with the tactical guidelines set by Bidzina Ivanishvili's entourage. 

It is just the walkout from the ruling coalition of the party of Alasania who occupied the position of defence minister in Garibashvili's government that led it to such a sudden break-up. This crisis was prompted by criminal proceedings with officials of Alasania's agency at the centre of action. Originally, charges of negligence were brought against six workers of the Defence Ministry during investigation into the case of 900 poisoned military servicemen. Then the Main Prosecutor's Office of Georgia detained five staff members of the Defence Ministry on charges of "embezzlement of state funds totalling over 4m lari" (2.3m dollars). 

Irakli Alasania responded to the arrests in quite a surprising manner. He described the actions by the Main Prosecutor's Office as an "attack on the Defence Ministry and the country's Euro-Atlantic choice". It is this statement that caused his dismissal. As the head of government, Irakli Garibashvili said, the decision on Alasania's resignation was taken in connection with his attempts to politicize investigations into corruption at the Defence Ministry. 

"I decided to dismiss Defence Minister Irakli Alasania in order to prevent privatization of the Defence Ministry and not to interfere with the investigation," the premier said. Alongside this, he disproved Alasania's statements that actions by the prosecutor's office posed a threat to "Georgia's Euro-Atlantic course". The main point is that the prime minister accused the Alasania team of sabotage. "Their demonstrative walkout from their posts jeopardizes the state," Garibashvili said. 

The concerns expressed by the Georgian prime minister are not ungrounded. After the dismissal of Irakli Alasania, his fellow party members voluntarily quit their posts: Aleksi Petriashvili, the minister for integration into European and Euro-Atlantic structures, and Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze (incidentally, Irakli Alasania's sister-in-law). 

Free Democrats' secession from Georgian Dream actually marked the coalition's collapse. So now supporters of the coalition founder Bidzina Ivanishvili will not be able to rely on a parliamentary majority in pursuing their political line. The ruling coalition has lost 10 seats and now it has only 73 votes in the 150-seat legislative body. The government crisis may aggravate if parliament fails to approve the state budget before the end of the year. In that case, the issue of forming a new government will arise. However, given the new power balance, one should not rule out a failure of this prospect too, which will force President Margvelashvili to dissolve parliament and fix an early election. 

But to have a full picture of the current crisis, one should not disregard the content of the accusations brought by Irakli Alasania against the prosecutor's office. In his reaction to the arrests of the Defence Ministry's officers, Alasania in essence pointed out two motives by which, in his opinion, the law-enforcement bodies were guided. The first one is related to Alasania's statement that actions by the prosecutor's office are an "attempt at his political assassination". Directly or indirectly, by this assessment the former minister admitted to having higher ambitions than the position, even a rather significant one, in the Garibashvili cabinet. In Georgian experts' opinion, Alasania's urge for power was too explicit. And, no doubt, the ruling tandem of Margvelashvili-Garibashvili knows only too well about Alasania's ambitiousness. But is this (or only this) circumstance really a factor behind the ouster of the Free Democrats leader from the government? 

To answer this question, it is necessary to clear up in more detail the second component of Alasania's statement accusing the prosecutor's office of launching criminal proceedings against his former subordinates. "I can tell those who planned this that there is nothing to scare me into giving up the goal of my country's European integration," Alasania said.

To understand Alasania's meaning accurately, it would be appropriate to look through the former defence minister's career stages. Alasania came from the Georgian special services. From the late 1990s, he was in positions of responsibility at state security bodies. Then he was deputy secretary of the country's Security Council. In 2005-06, he was the Georgian president's personal representative in charge of Abkhazia conflict settlement and in 2006-08 he was Georgia's permanent representative at the UN. However, late in 2008, Alasania resigned attributing this step to having differences with then President Mikheil Saakashvili. In spring 2012, the Free Democrats party led by him joined the Georgian Dream coalition. Alasania took the post of defence minister in October 2012.

In all previous years, Alasania stubbornly tried to position himself as a consistent supporter of the pro-Western line. At the same time he gained fame as a politician with especially close links to the USA. But could this mean that the conflict between Alasania and Garibashvili might really be based on the latter's ambition to change the country's foreign policy vector? Most probably it could not. By appealing to this "threat", the former minister is merely trying once again to consolidate his reputation as the most pro-Western and pro-American politician in this country. This is a kind of signal to Washington and Brussels. Alasania's attempts to attribute what is going on to Russia's conspiracy against the Euro-Atlantic-oriented Georgia also serve this purpose. And so do the former defence minister's calls to all pro-Western forces in the country to rally around him.

No doubt, there is good ground for this kind of statements in the sense that the current Georgian government is trying to tone down the confrontation with Russia. At the heart of such "pro-Russian" measures first taken by Bidzina Ivanishvili and then continued by Margvelashvili and Garibashvili are pragmatic reasons rather than the intention to take a line towards real rapprochement with Moscow. All the more so as the signing of the European Association Agreement has convincingly proved the current Georgian leadership's adherence to their pro-Western strategy. 

Of extraordinary interest in this entire story is the way the Georgian crisis is taken by the West itself. Washington is making no secret of its concerns. The US Department of State official spokesperson Jen Psaki greatly appreciated the work of the resigned Georgian ministers "in service to their country" and "in partnership with the USA". But the most important thing is that Psaki urged Georgian politicians to take into account existing realities. "At a time of regional turmoil and domestic economic challenge" it is necessary "to demonstrate stability, unity, commitment to the rule of law and public confidence in democratic institutions," the US spokesperson said. 

The West, primarily the USA, is certainly far from being delighted at the fact that Georgia, their closest ally in the South Caucasus, has entered a new period of political crisis. As regards Irakli Alasania, it looks like he himself counts on strong pressure on official Tbilisi from Washington and Brussels and hopes that the Euro-Atlantic centres will not allow prosecution of Georgia's "most pro-Western politician". 

One way or another, Georgia may again plunge into an atmosphere of bitter political infighting. Let alone public administration efficiency. The Georgian Dream coalition as the voice of quite a big part of Georgian society with its hopes for a better life has claimed so far to provide such efficiency but now it is under threat.