Georgia: Rise and Fall of the Facade Democracy

Demokratizatsiya, Winter 2004 by Devdariani, Jaba

Georgia's "revolution of roses," November 22-3, 2003, brought an unprecedented generational change in post-Soviet political leaderships, based on public support for the democracy. Like every revolution, it tells a story of failed reform.

Gradual weakening of Eduard Shevardnadze's government has been observed both by national and international analysts who spoke of Georgia as a "failed state." But, more important, Shevardnadze's inflexible style of governance acted as a straightjacket for the political environment that grew increasingly complex since Georgia's independence.

On November 23, Eduard Shevardnadze was forced to resign his office, amid the wave of public protests against rigged parliamentary elections, after ruling the country for twelve consecutive years and being in the country's top leadership since the 1970s.

Some observers refer to these events as a surprise breakthrough of democracy. Others point out that the leaders who deposed the president were among the top ten leaders of Shevardnadze's own Citizens Union of Georgia in the 1999 parliamentary elections. Thus, the critics say no significant political change has occurred.

To put Georgia's "revolution of roses" in a proper context, it is necessary to analyze the pressures that the country's social and partisan environment put on the political system that personally became associated with Shevardnadze since the 1990s.

Only by fusing both of these observations can we tell a story of emergence of the country's democratic institutions, party politics, and failed reform.

Preface

Forty-five political entities, thirteen of which were the party blocs, participated in Georgia's 1999 parliamentary elections. While the general level of party pluralism in Georgia is acknowledged widely, researchers have noted several deficiencies that prevent the political process from becoming a robust and sustainable foundation for the country's democratic development.

Among the most frequently mentioned are:1

1. Lack of internal party democracy

2. Little or no effort to develop meaningful party platforms

3. Little attention to membership

4. Weak constituency relations

5. Failure to separate elected party representatives from the management responsibilities

6. Confrontationalism and a propensity to fractionalize2

These political party deficiencies are characteristic of many post-socialist countries. In Georgia, however, the party system had to be recreated from scratch at least twice in the country's recent history, leading to abortive development.

The political parties emerged in Georgia in a process broadly reminiscent of similar processes in post-Soviet space. The elitist groups in ideological opposition to communism, commonly known as dissident groups, preceded the modern parties. They did not strive to gain control of the government; hence they cannot, strictly speaking, be characterized as political parties. Many of the dissident leaders have played an active role in the new political parties, and some still remain in the political arena.

The political groups aspiring to power today emerged in the late 1980s and formed a vanguard of the independence movement. They succeeded the Communist regime through elections in 1990 but had little time to develop organizationally. Most of these groups squandered popular support in a bloody coup that ousted President Zviad Gamsakhurdia in early 1992. As a result, the rules of the political game and the system of political parties have taken shape since 1995.

Different from many other post-socialist states, the Communist Party almost has vanished from the political arena since 1989. The former Communist nomenklatura has maintained some of its influence and financial assets, but as an organizational entity, the Communist Party never has recovered, attracting the protest vote.

The development of other political groups has been characterized by several broad trends. Initially, with the tide of the national movement rising, "the simultaneous admission of all social strata and economic groups into post-communist electoral systems has created an incentive to establish catchall parties that appeal to many constituencies."3 The Round Table-a political bloc that won the 1990 elections in a landslide-exemplified this trend.

As the political system was recreated following the ousting of Gamsakhurdia, this pattern was repeated by the Citizens Union of Georgia (Sakartvelos Mokalaketa Kavshiri, SMK) in 1995, which formed the basis for President Eduard Shevardnadze's government.

Since the mid-1990s, the political landscape has diversified as the social cleavages have begun to crystallize following a certain degree of economic recovery. The media, nongovernmental organizations, business elites, and impoverished citizenry began to emerge as the bases of political power as political party outreach expanded.

Shevardnadze's strong presidential powers have limited the impact of parties on executive decisions. In this sense, "superpresidentialism" acted as a brake on development of the ideological platforms and the parties' links to the electorate.4 However, as some analysts have argued using the example of other post-Soviet states, a strong presidency was not altogether negative for party development.5