Georgia’s Leader Escapes Damage in Biden Visit

By ELLEN BARRY

TBILISI, Georgia — This weekend, after the brass band had gone home and workers had taken down the American flags fluttering all over town, this much was clear: President Mikheil Saakashvili had survived.

Pundits were writing his political obituary through much of the past year. Former loyalists defected from his administration to join the opposition, Western allies blamed him for starting the war with Russia last August, and Russian leaders publicly menaced him, calling him a “political corpse.”

It was a worried man who greeted Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. last Wednesday. Mr. Saakashvili went beyond friendly to pushy in his quest for support, telling his guest, mid-banquet, that “there is no free dinner in Georgia.” At first — as Mr. Saakashvili welcomed “my dear Joe” and Mr. Biden responded with a prim “Mr. President” — it was not clear what the American response would be.

But apparently Mr. Saakashvili got the signal he needed. Mr. Biden did not criticize Mr. Saakashvili, at least in public; on the contrary, he focused the brunt of his anger on Russia. On Friday, the police quietly removed the makeshift prison cells that were erected four months ago, when opposition leaders vowed to fill the streets until Mr. Saakashvili resigned. It now seems clear that unless something extraordinary happens, he will serve out his term.

“It’s nothing less than miraculous,” said Lawrence Scott Sheets, the Caucasus program director for the International Crisis Group, an independent organization that focuses on conflict resolution. “He does have this Houdini-like capability. A lot of politicians would have folded their cards. He just said ‘no.’ ”

Indeed, Mr. Saakashvili has shown a remarkable ability to recover from his frequent mistakes. Less than two years ago, his popularity plummeted after the police used tear gas, water cannons and clubs to clear an antigovernment demonstration on Nov. 7, 2007, leaving 500 people wounded. After the crackdown, government troops entered and closed down Imedi, an independent television station. Mr. Saakashvili said he acted to prevent a Russian-backed coup, but his image as a model reformer was shattered.

That time, Mr. Saakashvili recovered with a risky tactical move: he offered to resign and run for re-election. He eked out 52.8 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a second round of voting, though far less than the 96 percent he won in 2004, when the so-called Rose Revolution brought him to power.

He had barely recovered from the re-election gamble when the tinderbox of South Ossetia exploded. Routing Georgia’s Army in a matter of days, Russia took control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, bringing relations between Russia and the West to a post-cold-war low. Though Mr. Saakashvili said he had no option but to order his attack on Tskhinvali, the separatist capital of South Ossetia, his critics said he led Georgia into an unnecessary, and disastrous, war.

Mr. Saakashvili is keenly aware of eroding support in Western Europe, said Alexander Rahr, a Russia specialist at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

“I remember him going from one country to another asking for money, asking for acceptance to NATO,” Mr. Rahr said. “He was touring the world. Since this war, he has not been in any Western capital. He is going to Latvia, Lithuania. He isn’t traveling to the West, because he understands he is not welcome.”

Almost immediately, political figures began positioning themselves to take his place. Nino Burjanadze, Mr. Saakashvili’s partner in the Rose Revolution, emerged in October with a sharp critique of the war; in December, Irakli Alasania stepped down as Georgia’s envoy to the United Nations. They joined a crowded field of 10 opposition parties.

“Every leader of the opposition managed to come to Washington in the last year,” said Nikolai Zlobin, a defense analyst at the Washington-based Center for Defense Information. “Everyone was saying, ‘I’m the guy, I’m the girl, I can overcome, just help me.’ Washington was quite amazed by the parade of Georgian opposition.”

But mass protests — the kind that swept Eduard Shevardnadze out of power and replaced him with Mr. Saakashvili — dropped off after a few weeks. The opposition was leaderless and split over tactics, and the government took care not to repeat the mistakes of Nov. 7. By the time Mr. Biden arrived, the movement had dwindled away to a handful of mock cells in front of Parliament. And then even they disappeared.

“One could call it coincidence or not, but his visit completed the political cycle,” said Ghia Nodia, a leading analyst of Georgian politics. “The mock cells were gone on the day of his arrival. So that’s the end of the cycle.”

Mr. Biden’s visit aroused wistful memories of 2005, when a loose, affectionate President George W. Bush shimmied to Georgian folk music and told a crowd, “Sakartvelos Gaumarjos,” or “Georgia forever.” Mr. Saakashvili’s staff members pushed for Mr. Biden to participate in an unscripted event, in hopes of projecting some personal warmth.

They got it in an informal meeting with refugee children from South Ossetia. Mr. Biden’s reserve melted, and he spoke in raw, plain terms about his anger at Russia. As he returned to the United States, he leveled blistering criticism at Russia in an interview with The Wall Street Journal — infuriating Russian officials, and delighting Georgian ones.

Anyone expecting Mr. Biden to criticize Mr. Saakashvili, or reinvigorate this spring’s protests, was disappointed.

“Everyone in Georgia was thinking America would try to create a new king,” said Kakha Katsitadze, a military expert who has been allied with the opposition New Rights Party. “What he did was much better. Now every Georgian understands that our fate is our responsibility.”

The anger that emerged over the spring has not gone away, Mr. Nodia warned. But the political center of gravity has shifted to mayoral elections, which Mr. Saakashvili rescheduled from October to May as part of a package of reforms intended to placate the opposition. Many are looking to the race in Tbilisi — the heart of antigovernment opposition — as an indicator of who might run to succeed him when his term ends in 2013.

That is not to say that Mr. Saakashvili’s troubles are over; the $1 billion pledged by Washington in the aftermath of the war has been disbursed or earmarked, and the unemployment rate has climbed to 17 percent.

Nugzar Zurashvili, 43, who was selling belts on Rustaveli Avenue, rolled his eyes at questions about Mr. Biden’s impact on Georgian politics, and said Mr. Saakashvili should pay less attention to the opinion of the West. He went on to complain about health care and high electricity and gas bills.

“He has to look after ordinary people if he wants to survive,” Mr. Zurashvili said. “He has four years to survive.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/world/europe/27georgia.html