Quicker better

On October 1, 2012, the greatest event took place in the Georgian history. Since gaining its independence from the Soviet Union, the state administration was replaced through elections in the country. The first President of the independent Georgia was ousted from the country after a military coup. Thus, state leaders were removed through the use of force. In 2003, Mikheil Saakashvili also broke into Parliament while in session and forced Eduard Shevardnadze to step down. It was the second forceful change of state administration.

The first coup resulted in casualties. Luckily, the second change in the administration was bloodless.

In 2012, all the procedures had legal bases. Georgians had grown quite frustrated and upset by the nine-year rule of Saakashvili and voted against him.

Unfortunately, the main motivation for the voters was the negation of the existing force. Public choice is not between good and bad, but between bad and worse.

Many were voting simply against the Saakashvili government, without assessment on who might come.

However, it should be admitted that the leader of the Georgian Dream enjoyed sympathy and popularity in public. His past charity and philanthropic moves were a stimulus as well for people to vote for him. Many suspected that Ivanishvili would not resist the temptation to be in leadership for a long time. However, just a year after taking office, he quit the position of Prime Minister.

Not all of Ivanishvili’s choices were perfect. People often expressed their dissatisfaction about the performance of high-ranking officials. Sometimes, there were certain very vivid mistakes made by the government. For instance, the coalition appointed a person to the position of the chief-prosecutor who had a criminal record. Of course, he was replaced. However, the fact has been used by the opposition in a negative light.

The former government UNM slowly recovered from the shock it received after the parliamentary elections in 2012 and launched attacks against the coalition. The UNM has very powerful levers in its hands. These are people at the top positions in the regions: governors, mayors, gamgebelies, heads of police departments and, most importantly, judges.

Under the circumstances, it was very hard for the new leadership to fulfill all the promises it gave to people.

One of the most important demands of the population was the restoration of justice. There are many suits at court in terms of presumably criminal cases committed under the previous government, from human rights’ violations to illegal appropriations of properties and so on.

There are curious situations in the country. For example: UNM members criticize Georgian Dream members for not fulfilling their promises in terms of IDPs from Tskhinvali region. They say that they would have handled the problem better than the coalition does. They do not go deeper into the issue and try to forget that the fact itself, why the IDPs appeared at all, was the result of the previous government’s unreasonable policy. Another example: the UNM opposition promises to reduce communal taxes. They do not discuss the issue appropriately, forgetting that they themselves fixed these taxes. There is another question as well: Why these problems were not met and resolved under their nine years at office?

However, people want justice to be restored in a short period. The new administration wants to follow the legal and slow process of performing all stages through the constitutional level. It is a long process. There is another factor as well, that Georgia has to keep a balance considering local and foreign policy interests of the country. International organizations from the EU, NATO and others are attentively watching Georgia. They immediately react on all the detentions of previous officials.

It is very easy to destroy; it is much more difficult to build. The current government has taken the right way. There are mistakes as well. The most positive moment under the current government is that Georgians are no longer afraid of expressing their opinions. The media and NGOs openly discuss mistakes committed by the current government, and in many cases, the mistakes are addressed. It has been recognized by international organizations that media and court are better and more independent now than they were under the previous government. The tendencies are encouraging, we want a good country to live in. The quicker the better.