Georgia: Saakashvili Support Still Strong

As mentioned in a previous post, if there were hopes that Russia’s continued occupation of parts of Georgia would contribute to the downfall of the country’s president, Mikhail Saakashvili, the move appears to have backfired.

Instead of playing on divisions and discontent in society, EurasiaNet reports that the Russian invasion of Georgia appears to have achieved the opposite.

Locally, the clash between Georgia and Russia is seen more in personal terms than within a strategic context. An August 9 statement by Putin that Russia would serve as “the guarantor of security, cooperation and progress” in the Caucasus hit many Georgians as the dropped glove in a personal duel. And in this battle — one that summons recollections of past Russian incursions, in particular the Tsarist Empire’s 1804 annexation of Georgia and the Soviet Union’s 1921 invasion of a newly independent Georgia — the sympathies of Georgians have as much to do with patriotism as they do with individual political preferences.

“When I saw Putin speak on Russian television, his eyes staring into the camera, I knew who he was talking to. It was Saakashvili,” said Tamriko Tsakadze, a Tbilisi homemaker. “He will not stop until he removes Saakashvili from power.”

Amid growing international consternation about Russia’s actions, the Kremlin has back-pedaled, saying that Moscow has no plans to topple Georgia’s democratically elected government. Putin has stepped back into the shadows, ceding the spotlight to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

But Georgians commentators remain convinced that Putin — not “de facto President Medvedev,” as one senior Georgian government official termed him — has orchestrated the entire Georgia campaign. Anti-Russian demonstrations still feature posters of Putin, not Medvedev.

If Moscow’s aim was to topple Saakashvili, the calculation has backfired, argues Alexander Rondeli, head of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies in Tbilisi.

“Moscow thinks that once Georgia is destroyed economically, militarily and morally all the anger will be directed against the government, but Moscow was never really able to read the Caucasus,” Rondeli said.

Brushing aside their political differences, most of the country’s political parties — never a fraternal bunch — have coalesced around Saakashvili. Even for Saakashvili critics, the president has come to symbolize their beleaguered nation.

Photo: Mikhail Saakashvili, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008