Georgians rebel against 'Father Shevy'

HE WAS one of the few figures from the old Soviet Union feted by the West when he returned to his native Georgia a decade ago promising to become the founding father of a newly independent democratic state.

"Shevy", as his friends in the US government affectionately called Eduard Shevardnadze, took with him the good wishes of President George Bush Snr, who promised American generosity out of gratitude for his vital contribution to freeing Russian society under Mikhail Gorbachev and his key role in the reunification of Germany.

But now it has all gone wrong. The latest elections in Georgia two weeks ago have produced an upsurge of outrage among the opposition parties that has taken the state to the brink of chaos.

And there has also been a sharp rebuke from old friends in Washington where 75-year-old Shevy has been criticised for "mismanagement and fraud" in the election.

The parliamentary elections are the climax to a decade of broken promises, for which many citizens blame Shevardnadze. He is accused of failing to deliver his country from unresolved conflicts, electricity crises, poverty and corruption.

Added to this are accusations that he failed to live up to his promise that the elections would be democratic and fair.

Shevardnadze’s original promises of democratic reform were backed by billions in foreign aid from the US - Georgia was one of Washington’s largest per capita aid recipients.

And after the September 11 attacks on the US, Shevardnadze was quick to align himself with President George W Bush in the war against terror. The US sent troops to Georgia to hunt for al-Qaeda militants said to be using the Pankisi Gorge close to Chechnya as a haven.

Before the recent Georgia election, Bush sent James Baker, who as US Secretary of State in his father’s presidency had become a close ally of Shevardnadze, to advise on a new electoral code to cut out corrupt practices.

But now Washington is urging Shevardnadze to compromise with the opposition, and is positioning itself for his political demise after the next presidential elections. That is, if he survives the present crisis.

That is by no means guaranteed. Last week Shevardnadze warned: "The present situation of civil confrontation may develop into a civil war. As long as I am president, a legally elected president, I won’t allow the nation to split."

In Tbilisi, where Shevardnadze was greeted with universal acclaim 10 years ago, memories have been revived of an even earlier career when first as a former local KGB chief, then as First Secretary of the Georgian Socialist Republic’s Communist Party he used all the old communist techniques for manipulating the electorate.

Every day last week protesters, angered by the alleged rigging of the national elections, kept up their pressure with demonstrations outside the national parliament. As many as 15,000 people gathered to march on the president’s office on Friday.

And the leading opposition politician, Mikhail Saakashvili, called for "all Georgia" to join the protesters. "There is no alternative to the resignation of Shevardnadze. We are fighting in order to have a future," said Saakashvili, who heads the National Movement party.

Nino Burdzhanadze of the opposition Democrats party, another key protest leader, said: "The opposition will not haggle with the government and demands the annulment of the election results."

A meeting between Shevardnadze and opposition leaders last Sunday ended without progress.

Election results, still incomplete, show the pro-government bloc, For a New Georgia, is leading, followed by the opposition Revival party, which tends to support the government on key issues, and the more radical National Movement.

But For a New Georgia has only about 20% of the votes, and the opposition claims that even this total is inflated. Emotions are swelling ahead of the announcement of the official results later this week.

But more than 400 international observers have already declared that the poll was marred by "spectacular" voting irregularities and fell short of international standards.

They said that many voters had not been registered in time to vote and that there had been delays and confusion over voting lists. Several polling stations did not open at all in Tbilisi and the second city Kutaisi because voting lists were incorrect, and voting had to be extended.

"We all witnessed some quite spectacular failures of the electoral administration," the head observer from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Bruce George said.

Analysts say Shevardnadze needs control of the parliamentary seats in order to hold on to power after his presidential term runs out in 2005.

Shevardnadze is also blamed for the loss of Abkhazia, which broke away from Georgia with the help of Russian armed forces, resulting in a substantial part of the population of the region being forced to flee their homes to other parts of Georgia, where they are still living as refugees.

Meanwhile, as the political tensions deepened last week, Shevardnadze made a visit to Aslan Abashidze, leader of the Revival party, in his autonomous Adzharia region and appeared at a support rally. The next day, Abashidze went to Armenia for talks with President Robert Kocharian and then met Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev. The meetings have led to speculation that Shevardnadze is seeking to rally support from his neighbours if the situation in Georgia deteriorates.