Uncertain Democracy. Lincoln A. Mitchell
world for his tenure as Soviet foreign minister, was being asked to return to his native Georgia and try to pick up the pieces left by the failed presidency of the erratic, undemocratic, slightly nutty Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Shevardnadze shared this view, often referring to his return to Georgia as one of the proudest moments in his career.3
The truth is more complicated. Gamsakhurdia, for all his many failings, was a democratically elected president. Shevardnadze was not elected to replace Gamsakhurdia; he was appointed by a collection of elites, some with strong ties to organized crime. While clearly a more competent, experienced, and perhaps even decent leader, Shevardnadze had no democratic foundation for his return to Georgia in 1992, when he was appointed acting chair of the Georgian State Council, effectively becoming the country’s leader. His assumption of this position may not have been a coup in the classic sense, but it certainly veered in that direction. Failure to understand this fact and how it influenced the feelings of ordinary Georgians toward their first secretary turned State Council chair (and in 1995, following constitutional changes, president) was central to many of the problems the West encountered in its democracy assistance policies during Shevardnadze’s tenure as president.
Shevardnadze’s Return to Georgia
When Shevardnadze became Georgia’s leader in 1992, he immediately faced the daunting tasks of bringing stability and the rule of law, establishing diplomatic ties with the West, rebuilding Georgia’s economy, keeping what was left of the state from disintegrating further, and beginning democratic reforms. The future of the Georgian state rested on resolving at least some of these problems.
The first few years of Shevardnadze’s presidency produced markedly mixed results. The unrest in Abkhazia and South Ossetia had begun during Gamsakhurdia’s tenure, but in Abkhazia the actual shooting began under Shevardnadze. The conflicts wound down with Georgia losing both regions, roughly 20 percent of its territory. Additionally, the moribund economy recovered only partly and very slowly, so unemployment and poverty remained enormous problems for the state and its new president. The country’s infrastructure, which had collapsed with the Soviet Union, also recovered only slightly; power outages and disruption of gas and water supplies continued to plague most of Georgia through the mid-1990s.
There were, however, positive signs as well during the early years of the Shevardnadze administration. First, Shevardnadze brought enormous personal prestige to the presidency, and Georgia benefited directly and indirectly from that prestige. Internationally, Georgia was the only former Soviet state other than Russia with a president who was well known and respected globally. The names of leaders of other post-Soviet countries, such as Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, were completely unknown in the West, but Shevardnadze did not have this problem. Through his formidable network of relationships and personal ties at the highest levels of dozens of foreign governments, Shevardnadze was able to accelerate Georgia’s diplomatic recognition. With Shevardnadze leading Georgia out of the chaos of the Gamsakhurdia period, foreign countries began to establish diplomatic ties, setting up embassies, forging bilateral agreements, and providing much needed foreign aid.
On taking office, Shevardnadze began to bring a measure of stability back to Georgia. The civil conflicts that had reached as far as the capital toward the end of Gamsakhurdia’s time in office decreased. Working with both business leaders and criminal elements, Shevardnadze was able to rein in the most dangerous and unlawful elements in Georgia, including Jaba Ioseliani’s Mkhedrioni, a paramilitary ultranationalist group based in western Georgia that was heavily involved in criminal activities. The country’s infrastructure was not rebuilt during this period, but it did improve so that more Georgians had slightly more access to gas, water, and electricity.
Shevardnadze positioned himself as the guarantor of Georgian stability, especially when interacting with foreigners. This role was largely accepted by the international community as diplomats and foreign policy makers were relieved to see a friendly and competent face at the helm of one former Soviet republic. However, Shevardnadze continued to be perceived differently by foreigners and Georgians, a theme that would continue throughout his presidency. Many Georgians saw Shevardnadze as an improvement over his predecessor and were grateful that some stability had returned to their lives, but they did not accept the Western narrative, which Shevardnadze promoted, in which the Soviet foreign minister had come back to his native land to save the teetering independent state. They remained frustrated with his failure to expand the economy, rebuild basic infrastructure, bring real democracy, or curb the corruption that continued to plague Georgia throughout the 1990s.
The modicum of stability that returned to Georgia in fact made it possible for corruption to become more formalized and to infiltrate every aspect of life. The police were little more than an organized crime ring, shaking down motorists for bribes, planting drugs on innocent people and demanding money for the charges to be dropped, and buying and selling positions in the police force. The education system gave way as poorly paid professors and dishonest university officials sold grades and college degrees to students of the newly rich corrupt business class. Ties between government and business were strengthened as government officials grew rich accepting bribes from business interests or stealing tax revenue and foreign assistance money. By 2000 it was virtually impossible to find an area of Georgian life untainted by corruption.
This view of the situation is borne out by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. This watchdog group’s annual survey ranks “more than 150 countries by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.”4 It does not rank every country for every year, but the data for Georgia, when available for the last years of Shevardnadze’s administration, are startling. In 1999 Georgia ranked 84th of 99 countries; it ranked 85th of 102 countries in 2002 and a remarkable 124th of 133 countries in 2003 (countries are ranked from least corrupt to most corrupt).
Democracy in the Early Shevardnadze Years
Democratic development in Georgia during the first years of Shevardnadze’s presidency was mixed. The extreme illiberal democracy and chaos of Gamsakhurdia’s time gave way to a regime with elements of what Carothers (2002) has called “feckless pluralism.” A weak state placed virtually no restrictions on assembly or speech. Georgians quickly made up for decades of not being allowed to enjoy these freedoms by forming civic organizations and political parties, creating newspapers and television stations, and engaging in other forms of civic activism. Think tanks and advocacy groups emerged that were critical of the government and pushed for reforms of the political system. Newspapers and talk shows were filled with pundits, politicians, and others commenting, often very critically, on political developments.
Georgia during these years was generally viewed as the most democratic of the non-Baltic former Soviet countries, with the greatest freedom of media, assembly, and civic life. Although this description was somewhat akin to likening it to the tallest building in Topeka, there was clearly democratic space in Shevardnadze’s Georgia. There was a vibrant civil society and free media, and the government generally left people alone to live their lives. During this time the parliament emerged as an important and visible institution. By the late 1990s, the Georgian assembly was a place where different political voices were heard, issues were debated, and different views on subjects were aired. In this regard, Georgia was quite different from most of the other countries in the region.
Table 1 shows the Freedom House scores for the countries of the former Soviet Union from 1991 to 2003.5 The total scores are the combined total for the civil liberties and political rights indices used by Freedom House to determine the extent to which a country is free. Scores are given on a scale of 1 through 7; lower scores indicate countries that are freer. Aggregate scores range from 2 to 14, with 2 representing a very free and democratic country and 14 an extremely repressive regime. In addition to the individual country scores, the table shows the mean score for all 15 countries and for the 12 non-Baltic countries.
TABLE 1. Freedom House Scores for Post-Soviet Republics
Source: “Freedom in the World Country Ratings