Who Owned Georgia English.pdf

When I arrived in Georgia in 2001, authorities andbusinessmen were pillaging the country’s resources silly. Theentire country was on the take, like a huge 1930’s Chicago onoverdrive. The police protected nobody but themselves as theyextorted money from random citizens to make their daily wages.The Ministry of Energy sold off what little energy assets therewere and kept the nation in the dark and frozen in the winter.Everybody knew who the criminals were because they flauntedtheir nepotism with pride. Nobody got rich legitimately inGeorgia.It was only a matter of time before this system imploded. InNovember 2003, widespread parliamentary election fraud igniteda mass movement led by a coalition of three opposition leaders:Mikheil Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze. Theprotest began with a demand for repeat elections and ended uppeacefully toppling the corrupt regime of Eduard Shevardnadze.In January 2004, Saakashvili was elected president with 97%of the vote. His party won a clear majority in parliamentaryelections two months later, which essentially gave Georgia a onepartygovernment.The Saakashvili administration zealously went to workto turn a failed state into a functional, modernized country.Saakashvili’s successes in battling corruption and institutingeconomic reforms have been lauded around the world, althoughlocally, the means to achieve many these achievements oftenraised questions of the ruling party, United National Movement’sintegrity. To what extent did the authorities respected the rule oflaw and how far were they willing to adhere to the democraticprinciples they espouse?Most people acquainted with Georgia are familiar with thestory of how in one day, President Saakashvili fired the country’spolice force in one bold swipe and turned Georgia’s most nefariousinstitution into one of its most respected. What they don’t knowmuch about is that part of the revolutionary government’s anticorruptioncampaign also singled out businesses and politicians4