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Georgias new rulers tighten grip on power

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   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/11/25/wgeor25.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/11/25/ixworld.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/11/25/wgeor25.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/11/25/ixworld.html

Georgia's new rulers tighten grip on power
By Julius Strauss in Tbilisi
(Filed: 25/11/2003)


Georgia's new leaders fought to shore up their control of the shaky state apparatus yesterday, summoning security chiefs and threatening recalcitrant hard-line ministers with the fury of the people if they refused to step aside.

Fighting to consolidate the gains of the previous day, when anti-government protesters forced the resignation of the president, Eduard Shevardnadze, they also announced that new presidential elections would be held within 45 days and disputed parliamentary elections would be partly rerun.

The streets of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, were returning to something approaching normality for the first time in weeks. Barricades were taken down, street cleaners returned to work and shops reopened.

Armoured personnel carriers and black-masked special forces had been removed from the road to the presidential residence and from outside the interior ministry.

As America and Russia both bestowed their blessings on the new regime, opposition leaders and activists were struggling to ensure that Shevardnadze loyalists did not exploit the power vacuum and regroup.

Nino Burdzhanadze, who was among the three main opposition leaders facing arrest the previous day, seized the initiative as acting president and summoned security chiefs to demand loyalty to the new regime.

In a nationally televised speech she said: "Order must be restored immediately, not only in Tbilisi but also in all the regions of the country." Later she told state television that she would repeal the state of emergency declared two days earlier by Shevardnadze.

After a night of hard partying to celebrate the demise of the veteran communist leader, other opposition activists gathered throughout the capital to plot their takeover of the levers of power.

At the Open Society Foundation, funded by George Soros, the US billionaire, to promote democracy in Georgia, several young men who had played critical roles in the "velvet revolution", were meeting.

News came through that the hawkish minister of the interior, Koba Narchemashvili, a Shevardnadze loyalist, was attempting to cling onto his post. Two women students were dispatched to present him with an ultimatum.

"Tell him that if he doesn't resign we'll hand him over to the people," an activist instructed them. The minister resigned later in a live television broadcast.

Meanwhile Mikhail Saakashvili, the firebrand who led the storming of the parliament on Saturday and flamboyantly drank Mr Shevardnadze's green tea after the president was forced to flee, sought to calm his followers.

Smoothly answering questions in four languages, Mr Saakashvili, a 35-year-old lawyer who studied in Europe and the US, promised to ensure the early return of law and order.

Officially he holds only the post of chairman of the Tbilisi city council but is now seen as the country's most powerful man.

He refused to confirm that he would run for president but analysts say he is the mostly likely candidate to lead the poverty-stricken country. Asked about his popularity, Mr Saakashvili, who has a large and vocal following, replied: "Ask the people on the street."

Georgia was once an unimportant provincial backwater of the Soviet Union, but it has become a frontline state in the war on terrorism.

Until this year Chechen rebels, some with links to al-Qa'eda, used the northern Pankisi Gorge as a shelter in their separatist war against the Russians.

Amid the cheers and jubilation that went on until dawn in Tbilisi yesterday, there was a grim realisation that difficult months lie ahead.

Corruption in the country is systemic, particularly in the ministries and the police force and wages and pensions are dismal. Nevertheless there was guarded optimism.

Zaliko Kikodze, an alpinist and geologist said: "I know this was the easy bit and there are many problems ahead. But this revolution was peaceful and that gives me great hope for the future."

Mr Shevardnadze, meanwhile, was still at his residence yesterday, despite rumours that he had flown to Germany.




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