Today, Georgia will celebrate the second anniversary of the “Revolution of Roses”. Mikhayil Sahakashvili has invited presidents from Ukraine, Estonia, Rumania, and Moldova to Georgia. Russian president Vladimir Putin was the only president that rejected the invitation, even though Sahakashvili had personally invited him by telephone. There is no official announcement made about the decision made by Putin. It is evident that the reason remains the same-Putin does not want to visit Tbilisi due to the fact that Russian-Georgian relations still remain rocky. However, Sahakashvili was not at all interested about that. No matter what, there are still many things to take care of with or without Putin. As a matter of fact, a press conference was held just a couple of days ago at one of the hotels in Tbilisi where presidents, politicians and specialists from different countries took part and the topic was the “Revolution of Roses”. All the evaluations were pointing out one thing-that the revolution was a big step for Georgia. However, the post-revolution reality is quite different. During the past two years, the people of Georgia finally came back to reality after the widespread euphoria. A miracle happened: the sudden inflation made the pensions and salaries go up. For many, living standards stayed the same. The authorities promised to once again control the lost territories but that remains a promise to this day. There were no great achievements in foreign politics either. Whereas the new authorities have managed to be in the center of attention of the U.S., something which Edward Shevardnadze used to complain about, relations with other strategic allies need to be improved. For example, although Georgia maintains good relations with Azerbaijan, however, if we compare the relations between Shevardnadze and Heydar Aliyev, then we can say that the relations were better before. The same goes for Turkey. But the most important is the European Union. As oppositionist and representative of “Republic” political party said to “168 hours”, Georgian foreign politics has made the final step towards “Americanization”, if we consider the removal of Georgian foreign minister Salome Zurabishvili by parliamentary deputy Ivlian Khaindrava as a means to get integrated into the European Union. Politician Paata Zakareishvili gave a detailed description to “168 hours”. “Recently, all the assignments and orders given refer to the three countries-Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. Obviously, this is not in our favor if we consider that those same countries were suggesting learning from Tbilisi, which sets an example of building up on the state through democracy and legalities.” We mustn’t even discuss the hard times that Georgia is going through with Russia. The fact that Putin is periodically rejecting the invitations to go to Georgia is a good example.
All these problems bring us to the conclusion that today, as Georgia celebrates the second anniversary of the revolution, there are serious signs showing that the authorities must fight against the opposition. We are talking about the “democratic front”, which includes the “Republican” and “Conservative” political parties. Other forces, particularly the movement headed by Salome Zurabishveli, are ready to join those political parties. Zurabishveli has announced the following to journalists: “I am not planning on founding a political party because, right now, that will just split the people up. We will try to solve the problems that have been accumulated by cooperating with the already existing political parties.” According to politicians, that is the weakness of the opposition. “There are two new political forces in Georgia’s center of attention and this is a good thing. After all, the country lost three of them after the revolution: the followers of Shevardnadze and Abashidze disappeared and the political followers left after the death of Zurab Zhvania. It is still too early to say that there exists a second political force in Georgia. The opposition realizes that that is bad and criticizes it. But what it doesn’t talk about is how to fix the situation,” said Paata Zakareishvili to “168 hours”. You can’t debate about this. Sahakashvili says the same thing, as if we know that everything is not fine but we are trying to ameliorate the situation; and if the opposition is so clever, then it can tell us what to do to make everything better.
But for now, all we can say is long live the “Revolution of Roses”. Let’s celebrate the second anniversary of the revolution.