With New Political Landscape, Can Stability Prevail?
By Brian Whitmore Humbled by a narrow victory in Georgia’s snap elections, President Mikheil Saakashvili has admitted that he can no longer “ignore the opinions” of his opponents. Neither, it appears, can his allies in the West. Since sweeping to power in the wake of the 2003 Rose Revolution, Saakashvili has carefully cultivated the image of a democratic reformer who would lead Georgia out of its post-Soviet funk and into the promised land of Europe’s mainstream. His U.S. education, single-minded determination to join NATO, and open defiance of Moscow led many Western policymakers to view him as a reliable ally in the volatile and strategically important South Caucasus. But in the wake of the January 5 election — in which Saakashvili won 52 percent of the vote, narrowly avoiding a runoff — the emphasis has suddenly shifted from big-picture goals like transatlantic integration to smaller-scale domestic issues, like poverty and infrastructure. Moreover, the man who won 96 percent of th
