Mark MacKinnon comments on Shevardnadze’s resignation in an article appearing on the Globe and Mail:
But somewhere along the line, Mr. Shevardnadze reversed course and decided to once more embrace Russia. This summer, Georgia signed a secret 25-year deal to make the Russian energy giant Gazprom its sole supplier of gas. Then it effectively sold the electricity grid to another Russian firm, cutting out AES, the company that the U.S. administration had backed to win the deal. Mr. Shevardnadze attacked AES as “liars and cheats.” Both deals dramatically increased Russian influence in Tbilisi.
I posted a link to Putin’s energy push into Georgia here.
Eurasianet gets into more detail here:
Anatoly Chubais, chairman of the Russian electricity monopoly, RAO Unified Energy Systems (UES), confirmed August 6 that the company had purchased a 75 percent stake in Georgia’s AES-Telasi joint venture from AES Silk Road, a subsidiary of the US-based AES Corp. The purchase price was not disclosed. The deal gives UES a virtual lock on Georgia’s domestic electricity market. The deal’s public-relations value came to the fore in Chubais’ press conference, when he declared: “Systematic power supply to Tbilisi is our main goal.” These promises almost always gain steam in Georgia, where power outages occur several times a year. Chubais also promised to consider reducing Georgia’s often-cripplingly high rates, which average around 6.5 cents per kilowatt.
That article restates that observers felt Shevardnadze was agreeing to the deal with Russia in order to gain support during the parliamentary elections as it was believed his party would be ‘hard pressed’ to win fairly due to its unpopularity. Eduard initially claimed the deal occurred behind his back but it appears to have been months in the making and could have been blocked by him. He maintained it would mean lower energy costs for Georgians.
Are the opposition leaders U.S. sponsored? What is going on with the vote?
Again from the Eurasianet article;
Opposition leaders have focused on the UES deal, vowing to annul it. Even if they wrest control of Parliament on November 2, though, it is unclear how extensively Georgian officials have cemented UES’ dominance. It is also unclear what legacy Georgia’s latest blackout will leave.
According to Vladimir Socor, IASPS Senior Fellow Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies:
Contrary to both the popular and pro-Western elite expectations, these elections did not remove the parliamentary logjam that had in recent years blocked political and economic reforms. On the contrary, these elections have resulted in a hung legislature and reduced the convinced reformers to perhaps a third or a quarter of the parliamentary seats. Under the party-list system:
–the Coalition for a New Georgia (hereafter CNG), pro-presidential, but otherwise highly heterogeneous, has obtained 20.5 percent of the votes cast;
–Revival Union, personal instrument of Ajaria’s ruler Aslan Abashidze, 18.5 percent, upsetting the political balance in the entire country;
–National Movement-Democratic Front (hereafter NMDF), led by the main adversary of Shevardnadze, perceived right-winger Mikheil Saakashvili, 18 percent;
–the Democrats, led by incumbent Parliament chairwoman Nino Burjanadze and former Parliament chairman Zurab Zhvania, fully pro-Western though in the anti-presidential camp, 8 percent;
–New Right, led by Davit Gamkrelidze and Levan Gachechiladze, a pro-business and pro-American party, 7.5 percent.
Other parties fell below the 7 percent threshold of parliamentary representation.
These are the preliminary official returns, released by the Central Electoral Commission as of this writing. The CEC is still counting votes from problematic electoral precincts, continually adjusting only the decimal points in the parties’ scores.
The opposition has conducted its own exit polls and parallel tabulations, for the most part selectively and through spot-checks. Citing its data, it claims 26 to 27 percent for NMDF, and 10 to 11 percent for the Burjanadze-Zhvania Democrats. This became the main basis for accusing the authorities of fraud.
End of Excerpt.
I inserted the last two links.
From the first, an interview conducted by EurasiaNet with Georgian CEC Chairwoman Nana Devdariani:
EurasiaNet: Opposition leaders who are protesting the official preliminary results are citing the information delivered by Fair Elections. You can see a substantial difference between the CEC results and the results announced by the NGO. Can you explain how the totals can be so different?
Devdariani: The Fair Elections NGO counted the votes in 600 precincts. But the overall number of precincts is 2,870. Why should we rely on information from 600 precincts, when the list of precincts is three times larger? To follow Fair Elections’ logic, the CEC does not need to count all the votes. … Look at the results coming from the various regions and you will see the extent of disparities. Some regions’ voters cast their ballots mostly for one of the parties, another region supported another party, and so forth. … If you will file results from a part of precincts, you will never get the real picture.
EurasiaNet: What about government pressure?
Devdariani: Authorities have long ago lost any hopes of this kind. That happened as far back as three years ago. They realized that putting pressure on me is useless. Now, what is most important, the opposition has to understand the same thing. What I am saying is that no matter what anybody would like or dislike about the election outcome, I will never falsify the voting results.
Found by branching out from the second link:
In October 2002, a national coalition forged with the help of the Democracy Coalition Project was established in Georgia. Several leading Georgian NGOs and think tanks, including the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy, and Development, Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights, Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, Liberty Institute, Partnership for Social Initiatives, and the Centre for Social Studies, have joined forces to work together on the following issues: (1) civil and political rights and freedoms; (2) rule of law, responsible governance and civic participation; (3) economic liberties; and (4) democracy promotion in foreign policy.
An initiative of the Open Society Institute, the project was inspired by a landmark international political event in Warsaw, Poland in June 2000, in which over 100 governments participated. In an effort to further consolidate their dedication to democratic principles, they agreed to endorse the Warsaw Declaration, which commits them to build a Community of Democracies as an association of democratic states dedicated to strengthening democratic values and institutions at home and abroad. For more information about the Warsaw Declaration, click here.
Where was IFES during the recent Azerbaijan presidential election, or should I ask, were they there?