Georgian election presents dilemma for the West

Published on Sunday 2 November 2003 00:00

THE future of President Eduard Shevardnadze was at stake today as voters in Georgia, America’s staunchest ally in the oil-rich Caucasus region, headed for the polls amid accusations of corruption and violence.

Few believe that the election will free their country from the stranglehold of authoritarianism, which despite his reputation as a friend of the West, the former Soviet foreign minister has enforced since the break-up the USSR.

The dilemma for the West, and particularly for the Americans, who have huge strategic interests in the country, is that Shevardnadze presides over an impoverished country beset by corruption and kidnappings.

And despite the close friendship the native Georgian struck up with President George Bush Snr when he was Soviet foreign minister, he has not forgotten the old communist techniques for manipulating the electorate he learned when he ruled Georgia virtually without a break for 31 years; first as a former local KGB chief, then as First Secretary of the Georgian Socialist Republic’s Communist Party.

Three opposition parties have decided to sink their differences, and have formed an anti-Shevardnadze urban-rural, centre-right coalition whose motto is "Georgia without Shevardnadze". They accuse the president’s increasingly right-wing, nationalist and notoriously corrupt supporters of inciting street fights to discredit the opposition and retain power.

US policy is to support Shevardnadze. The Georgian president was quick to support President George W Bush’s war on terror after the September 11 attacks. In return Washington sent troops to Georgia to train its underfunded military in anti-terrorist operations, focusing on insurgents with al-Qaeda connections filtering across the mountains into Chechnya. The US troops are still there.

Overshadowing the election is the rumbling crisis over the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, which broke away from Georgia in 1993. Since then efforts to reach a political settlement on the territory’s status have made little progress.

There has also been violence in Georgia’s Autonomous Republic of Ajaria, where a number of people were injured when Ajarian authorities broke up a rally by the opposition National Movement in the capital Batumi.