31/10/2013
Mira Milosevic is a writer and lecturer at Instituto Universitario Ortega y Gasset
Giorgi Margvelashvilli's victory, of the Georgian Dream party, in the presidential elections of Georgia last October 27 with a large majority of 62% of the votes, has opened a new political cycle in this country of the South Caucasus. However, its future will be conditioned by two issues of the past: its tense relations with Russia and the approach to the European Union and NATO.
The triumph of Margvelashvilli (supported by the founder of the Georgian Dream and current Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanshvilli) and, above all, the attitude of the candidate of the United National Movement David Bakradze who, having obtained 21.8%, of the votes has accepted defeat and congratulated the winner, show that the peaceful alternation of power, characteristic of democracies, is now operating in Georgia. Bakradze was supported by outgoing President Mikhail Saakashvilli and their defeat means that Georgians have spoken freely against continuity. Except for the Ukrainian presidential elections in 2010 and the parliamentary elections in Georgia last year, democratic alternation of power in the former Soviet republics has not exactly been frequent.
Both Russia and the West–albeit for different reasons–believe that Georgia is vital to their interests. For the Russians, Georgia has a real and symbolic importance: oil and gas from Azerbaijan flow through it toward Europe, and it comprises in its territory two states, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia "liberated" in August 2008. Russia's intervention, which resulted in the recognition of independence of both regions, began with the pretext of protecting their Russian residents. But its symbolic value does not only rest in that solidarity with their compatriots, but in the attitude of being a great power revived which does not hesitate to take military action in another country if it deems it appropriate. Russia invaded Georgia after Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence, deliberately imitating Western intervention in Serbia in 1999. Westerners reacted with irritation at the "awakening of the Russian bear," but merely limited themselves to discuss the appropriateness of admitting Georgia into NATO.
Georgia, along with Ukraine and Moldova, will be one of the countries strengthening institutional links with the EU at the next European summit in Vilnius (28 and 29 November). This summer, Georgia concluded negotiations for an association agreement and a free trade area with the EU. Russia will lose some of its influence in Eastern Europe. In Georgia there is a national consensus on the need for greater integration in the West, but not how to articulate relations with Russia, which, up to date, has obstructed this process. Prime Minister Ivanishvilli, who made his billionaire fortune in Russia, favours a moderate policy and the resumption of economic relations with the latter, while the losers of this election--Saakashvilli and Bakradze--who also lost the 2008 war, insist on defending Georgia's territorial integrity. However, the easing of tensions with Russia is essential for the fulfilment of any Georgian dream.