The arguments in the kitchens and salons of Tbilisi, in its taxi-cabs and buses, its cafes and wine-bars are as fevered today as the mid-summer storms that clatter over the mountains surrounding the city. In the ongoing national row over the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili there is little room for neutrality or nuance. The absence of compromise in the political debate is polarising society with potentially disastrous consequences for all involved.

Robert Parsons isinternational editor of France 24. He earned a doctorate at Glasgow University for a thesis on the origins of Georgian nationalism. He was the BBC's Moscow correspondent (1993-2002), and worked at RFE/RL asdirector of its Georgian service, senior correspondent and chief producer for multimedia projects

Also by Robert Parsons in openDemocracy:

"Russia and Georgia: a lover's revenge" (6 October 2006)

"Georgia: progress, interrupted" (16 November 2007)

"Georgia's race to the summit" (4 January 2008)

"Mikheil Saakashvii's bitter victory" (11 January 2008)

"Georgia, Abkhazia, Russia: the war option" (13 May 2008)

"Georgia's dangerous gulf" (30 May 2008)

"Georgia after war: the political landscape" (26 August 2008)

"Georgia: the politics of recovery" (24 October 2008)

"Georgia on the brink- again" (20 May 2009)

The prominent opposition leader Salome Zurabishvili fears that the country has reached the critical point where one rash move from either side could plunge Georgia into chaos. This is why, she insists, she responded to Mikheil Saakashvili's offer to the opposition in June 2009 by accepting the position of  deputy interior minister.

The gulf between opposition supporters and the police has grown ever wider, Zurabishvili says, especially after a clash between the two sides on 15 June in the centre of Tbilisi. After that, the former former minister felt the only way to bridge the divide was for her to take up the president's offer. It is not that she supported the government, rather that she fears for Georgia's future: the government has lost so much credibility, she maintains, that nobody believes the police even when they are telling the truth. 

There is something in Salome Zurabishvili's views. A gulf does exist between state and society in Georgia and it is becoming dangerously wide. But this take on recent events in Georgia is also disingenuous, because it ignores the part played by the uneasy alliance of opposition forces itself in creating the current political impasse.     

That, however, is not to exculpate the government from responsibility. For the government's handling of the proposal to Zurabishvili throws into question the honesty of its own avowed commitment to compromise - and indeed its competence. No sooner had she accepted the offer than it was withdrawn, on the spurious grounds that this senior politician intended to use the post as a political platform.    

It was a gift to the opposition - proof, they crowed, that Saakashvili could not be trusted. In consequence, the chasm that splits Georgian society yawned wider still (see "Georgia on the brink- again", 20 May 2009).

This is a recurring theme in Georgian history. The notion of a fractured society dominated the political debates of the late 19th century, when the leaders ofthe national movement urged Georgians to reconstruct the chatekhili khidisga mteleba (smashed bridge) between classes and ethnicities. This time the bridge that is collapsing is between state and society.

The state-society chasm

The depth of the crisis facing Georgia today makes it sound paradoxical: but Mikheil Saakashvili's mostsignificant achievement to date has been precisely in...state-building - the transformation of moribund organisations into genuinely functioning institutions.

In 2003, before the "rose revolution" of November-December that year which swept Saakashvili to power in place of Eduard Shevardnadze, the police force was corrupt, underpaid, under-resourced and parasitic. Today, it has changed beyond recognition, even though it still needs reform. The same is true of the army, notwithstanding the shortcomings revealed by the war with Russia in August 2008. There are other improvements. Georgia's customs services come as a pleasant surprise to anyone who has suffered at the hands of those in Russia and other former republics of the Soviet Union; gas, electricity and water are delivered regularly; the tax service operates efficiently; bureaucratic obstacles have been cut drastically. In short, Georgia feels more like a state today than the banana republic it was once close to becoming.

But it is all still very much a work in progress. The list of what remains to be done is long and instructive. There have been years of criticism from the European Union and the Council of Europe as well as Georgia's opposition and civil society, yet severe institutional failures remain: the judiciary remains dominated by the executive, media freedom is still vulnerable to political pressure, and grassroots democracy (particularly in the provinces) is under pressure from the state. Moreover, parliamentary democracy itself has been stymied, in part by Saakashvili's accumulation of power in the presidency and the failure of successive elections to win the trust of the people.

To paraphrase Barack Obama's remark during his major speech in Ghana on 11 July 2009: what Georgia needs today is strong institutions, not another strong man. 

But it also needs a responsible opposition. It is true that members of opposition parties have been harassed and, in some cases, arrested in the provinces; but it is wrong to claim, as some opposition leaders do, that the Saakashvili government is authoritarian or even dictatorial. The opposition's voice is heard on television and radio round the clock; Maestro, its own TV station, has been awarded a licence to broadcast nationwide; its supporters have blockaded Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi's most prestigious avenue, for four months without any escalation o fclashes with the police (a confrontation that took place on 6 May was in a Tbilisi suburb); and its leaders are free to travel as they wish. It is not hard to find examples of authoritarian government in the post-Soviet space, but Georgia is not one of them.   

Among openDemocracy's articles on Georgian politics, including the war with Russia in August 2008:

Jonathan Wheatley, "Georgia's democratic stalemate" (14 April 2008)

Thomas de Waal, "The Russia-Georgiatinderbox" (16 May 2008)

Alexander Rondeli, "Georgia's search for itself" (8 July 2008)

Ghia Nodia, "The war for Georgia:Russia, the west, the future" (12 August 2008)

Donald Rayfield, "The Georgia-Russiaconflict: lost territory, found nation" (13 August 2008)

Neal Ascherson, "After the war:recognising reality in Abkhazia and Georgia" (15 August 2008)

George Hewitt, "Abkhazia and SouthOssetia: heart of conflict, key to solution" (18 August 2008)

Ivan Krastev, "Russia and theGeorgia war: the great-power trap" (19 August 2008)

Paul Rogers, "Russia and Iran:crisis of the west, rise of the rest" (21 August 2008)

Ghia Nodia, "Russian war andGeorgian democracy" (22 August 2008)

Vicken Cheterian, "Georgia's forgottenlegacy" (3 September 2008)

Rein Müllerson, "The world after theRussia-Georgia war" (5 September 2008)

Martin Shaw, "After the Georgiawar: the challenge to citizen action" (22 September 2008)

Katinka Barysch, "Europe and theGeorgia-Russia conflict" (30 September 2008)

Donald Rayfield, "Georgia and Russia:the aftermath" (16 November 2008)

Thomas de Waal, "The Caucasus: aregion in pieces" (8 January 2009)

Thomas de Waal, "Georgia and Russia,again" (30 January 2009)

Tedo Japaridze, "A Georgian chalkcircle: open letter to the west" (12 May 2009)

Nino Burdzhanadze, "A Georgian appeal:open letter to the west" (12 June 2009)

Ilia Roubanis, "Georgia'spluralistic feudalism: a frontline report" (3 July 2009)

Vicken Cheterian, "Georgia: between warand a future" (8 July 2009)

Plus: openDemocracy'sRussia section reports

Georgian democracy, like its institutions, has a long way to go to meet the standards of many European states. Yet even in barely a decade - counting the period before as well as since the "rose revolution" - there are achievements to build on as well as many areas that need improvement. This is not how leading elements of the opposition see it. They take the absolutist position that nothing positive has been done in the Saakashvili years; as a whole, the opposition creates the impression that if it ever comes to power it is ready to tear down the whole edifice the president has built.

The blind alley

An influential opposition leader and former speaker of parliament, Nino Burdzhanadze, says that street-demonstrations are the only way way left to the Georgian people to bring its preferred leaders to power. After only a few years of democratic reform, Burdzhanadze feels the ballot-box has exhausted its possibilities and that a return of Georgian politics to the street offers a more promising option.   

Yet the Georgian people, it seems, have more patience than their politicians.   Whatever the frustrations that most have with Saakashvili's government, it is clear that today Georgians crave evolution as much as they fear revolution.    

The evidence for this includes the failure of the opposition's "permanent" demonstration and "cage city" in the centre of Tbilisi, intended to remain until Saakashvili was forced from office, to capture the popular imagination. True, there have been peaks of protest - such as 26 May, Georgia's independence day, when 60,000 opposition supporters filled Dinamo Tbilisi's football stadium - but for the most part people have stayed away.

By the end of June, the demo on Rustaveli Avenue had dwindled to a few dozen diehards who refused toaccept the reality - that their efforts to precipitate a nationwide protest movement to force Saakashvili's removal had failed. Their leaders now acknowledge that the cages, filled with their supporters as a  symbol of the alleged tyranny of Saakashvili's rule, had been reduced to a symbolic protest with no expectation of a practical result. In mid-July, the opposition announced that it intended to remove the cages altogether in advance of the visit of United States vice-president Joe Biden on 22-23 July.

If the opposition had been united and possessed a clearly defined set of proposals for reform once Saakashvili was removed from power, the protest's outcome might have been different. But the disputatious forces ranged against the president have always found it hard to reach agreement and outline a strategic plan. As a result they been compelled to define themselves solely in terms of their dislike of Saakashvili. This failing has demoralised even some opposition leaders; privately, some admit the incompetence of their own colleagues.  

The inability of the opposition leaders to connect with the Georgian people and persuade a majority actively to support their case has put them under immense strain.  The frustrations that accompany a course of action that seems to be going nowhere increasingly exposes the cracks in their alliance.   

The maximalists - suchas Nino Burdzhanadze and Kakha Kukava of the Sakartvelos Konservatiuli Partia (Georgian Conservative Party) - still insist that the only subject on which they are prepared to negotiate with Saakashvili are the terms of his resignation (see Nino Burdzhanadze, "A Georgian appeal:open letter to the west", 12 June 2009). The moderates in the opposition now see this attitude as having led the alliance down a path with no exit.   

The deepening fissions have led individuals and parties to begin to go their own way, and take decisions that embarrass their putative colleagues. For example Levan Gachechiladze (a former presidential candidate) and Davit Gamqrelidze (the leader of Akhali Memarjveneebi [New Rights Party]), were caught on video in a Berlin meeting with Kakha Targamadze, an Eduard Shevardnadze-era interior minister. Targamadze is one of the most discreditable figures in the history of post-independence Georgia; he also has Russian citizenship and now lives in Moscow. The meeting is said to have infuriated Nino Burdzhanadze; she and most other opposition leaders rushed to dissociate themselves from the encounter, saying they had not been told in advance it was going to happen.

The trust deficit

But if the opposition is downbeat, Mikheil Saakashvili has no reason to celebrate. The opposition's incompetence and weakness cannot disguise the fact that Georgians are disenchanted with his rule. They do not trust the results of the presidentia land parliamentary elections in 2008; they are angry that he allowed Georgia to be drawn into war with Russia over South Ossetia; they resent the arrogance of the youthful ministers that make up his cabinet; and they lack confidence in the future.   

There is, in short, a deficit of trust for which Saakashvili must take his share of responsibility. The core challenge he faces is to overcome the divide between state and society; his success or otherwise will likely determine the way Georgia develops over the coming years. The task will entail a huge effort of political persuasion, for those who today feel marginalised or persecuted represent a sizeable percentage of Georgia's population - perhaps even a majority.

Saakashvili is at least aware of the scale of the task. He has for some time been proposing a dialogue on issues of genuine popular concern - including the crucial questions of electoral reform, judicial reform and the possibility of change to a more parliamentary form of democracy. He repeated some of these ideas in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on the eve of Joe Biden's arrival; and added an offer to the opposition of a better platform in the media, key government positions and pledges to set a date for new local elections.The president says that the turmoil of 2008-09 has forced him to reset his ambitions and to focus on modernising Georgia by deepening democracy and ensuring a smooth transition of power when his second term finishes in 2013 (see Andrew Osborn, "Georgia's President Vows Changes", Wall Street Journal, 20 July 2009)..

Much if not most of the opposition will dismiss this out of hand - citing the farce over the offer of a government post to Salome Zurabishvili - but an opportunity is there for its more moderate leaders to take him at his word. Irakli Alasania, a former Georgian ambassador to the United Nations - who on 16 July launched his new political party, Chveni Sakartvelo - Tavisupali Demokratebi (Our Georgia - FreeDemocrats) - has already engaged in a negotiation process, although with little to show for it so far.

Alasania's difficulty is in part captured by Ilia Roubanis in his openDemocracy article on "pluralistic feudalism" in Georgia (see Ilia Roubanis, "Georgia's pluralistic feudalism: a frontline report", 3 July 2009). Alasania has created yet another Georgian political formation, but neither it nor any other in the landscape represents larger social or aggregated interests or projects a coherent social or political programme; they are vehicles for ambitious personalities.   

The domination by personalities translates, naturally, into endemic rivalries. The opposition welcomed Alasania when it felt he would bring momentum to their drive to remove Saakashvili, but began to regard him with suspicion as soon as he started to carve out an agenda of his own. Indeed, privately, some say he is now finished.

It is certainly true that Alasania's position is weak. He has no independent means and represents no defined social currents; this leaves him dependent on people he might prefer to distance himself from - like Levan Gachechiladze and Davit Gamqrelidze, whose meeting with Kakha Targamadze put Alasania on the defensive.

A compromise might still be possible if Alasania and his allies in the Aliansi Sakartvelostvis (Alliance for Georgia) press for it. Alasania himself concedes that the door is at least half open. If - as seems very likely - this is what the majority of Georgian people want, there is a political opportunity waiting to be taken.

The door to stability 

What form such a compromise might take is harder to discern but the outlines of a possible agreement are beginning to emerge. Mikheil Saakashvili is evidently not prepared to consider early presidential elections, after winning an albeit contested victory as recently as January 2008. But he desperately wants a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of posterity. He wants to be remembered not as the man who inadvertently opened the gates to the Russian hordes but as one who paved the way for the modernisation of Georgia.

In practice, Saakashvili can only deepen democracy and achieve a smooth transition of power if he cooperates with the opposition. The implication is that his own psychological need for an honourable legacy is also a window of opportunity for the opposition.

If the president is not prepared to negotiate on presidential elections, he may be ready to do so on constitutional change (limiting presidential powers, in particular) and, critically, on early parliamentary elections. It is true that the government has hitherto ruled out this possibility but that could change. In a situation where Georgians' trust in the state is so corroded, a new round of parliamentary elections might help to restore it and to put the political process at the heart of Georgia's national debate.

Something urgently needs to be done to restore faith in the state. President Saaskashvili's speech to parliament on 20 July presents an ambitious programme and suggests that he recognises the need for this. Parliamentary elections, if preceded by electoral reform, might achieve it, as long as they are seen to be free, fair and transparent - which, of course, is a big "'if". 

Georgia's last parliamentary elections were held in May 2008. They took place in a febrile atmosphere, ended in acrimony, and became part of a period of unfolding instability that climaxed in the destructive war with Russia in August 2008. The anniversary of that war is approaching, in conditions of deep uncertainty and worry in the region. The European Union is said to have postponed publication of its official report on the causes of the war over South Ossetia - originally due by the end of July - to 30 September, in order to avoid adding fuel to current tensions.

In these unsettled conditions, Georgians of all political persuasions would benefit if the national parliament were to be transformed into a genuinely representative body with real powers to generate legislation. A plan to institute electoral and institutional reforms and then hold parliamentary elections in spring 2010 could be the key to unlocking Georgia's deep-rooted political crisis.

It could give opposition leaders like Irakli Alasania a strong platform to build towards the presidential election of 2013. It could present Mikheil Saakashvili with three years of stability to carry forward his project for Georgia's social, economic and political transformation. Most of all, it could win the support of Georgia's people and help convince them that politics, clear rules, strong institutions and good governance - not big personalities, loud voices, polarising language and public disorder - are the route to lasting progress. 

Georgia is still dazed by the catastrophic turn of events of August 2008, when a brutal five-day war with Russia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. The events of that period and its aftermath - which saw the country face bombardment, destruction, loss of life, expulsion of Georgians from the affected areas, military defeat and occupation of parts of its core territory - are still vivid and heavy on people's minds. Uncertainty clouds the future as anxiety about economic slowdown merges with the trauma of the conflict. There is a built-up tension in Georgian society that if not carefully handled could yet explode with unpredictable consequences.

Robert Parsons is international editor of France 24. He earned a doctorate at Glasgow University for a thesis on the origins of Georgian nationalism. He was the BBC's Moscow correspondent (1993-2002), and worked at RFE/RL as director of its Georgian service, senior correspondent and chief producer for multimedia projects

Also by Robert Parsons in openDemocracy:

"Russia and Georgia: a lover's revenge" (6 October 2006)

"Georgia: progress, interrupted" (16 November 2007)

"Georgia's race to the summit" (4 January 2008)

"Mikheil Saakashvii's bitter victory" (11 January 2008)

"Georgia, Abkhazia, Russia: the war option" (13 May 2008)

"Georgia's dangerous gulf" (30 May 2008)

"Georgia after war: the political landscape" (26 August 2008)Yet amidst this confusion, one fact remains indisputably clear. Russia's hopes that its combination of military, psychological and economic pressure would lead to the downfall of Mikheil Saakashvili have not been realised. For the moment, Georgia's president has survived with remarkable ease.

This is in large measure because Georgians' anger is mostly directed outwards at the Russians. Although there are doubts in Georgia about the immediate sequence of events that led to the outbreak of fighting on 7-8 August, the vast majority of Georgians accept the government's argument that Russia had long been intent on drawing Georgia into a conflict. Whatever mistakes Saakashvili may have made in allowing it to happen,  most place the blame for the August war at Moscow's door. Many go further and argue that Moscow's aggression towards Georgia made conflict inevitable sooner or later.

It helped, of course, that the war was short-lived. The occupation goes on, but Georgia has escaped the devastation that would surely have followed a more protracted conflict. There was ethnic cleansing of Georgian villagers in South Ossetia, but on the whole nothing to compare with the devastation wreaked by the Russians across the Caucasus mountains, on Chechnya. The country's infrastructure is damaged but international aid has also brought swift compensation. Even during the August war, visitors to the capital, Tbilisi, were struck by the air of normality in the city. On the surface, at least, life goes on as normal.

The opposition's plans

The solidarity of the national response to invasion owes much also to seventeen years of nation-building and, in particular, the efforts made by Saakashvili's government to strengthen national consciousness. There can be little doubt that if the Russian invasion had happened in the late 1990s, the country would have fallen apart within days. Saakashvili has worked hard to overcome the east-west divide in Georgia and in August it paid dividends. To the Russians' surprise, invasion has reinforced national solidarity not weakened it.

This was also a factor in the response of the Georgian opposition, which made clear in the aftermath of the invasion that it was putting its attacks against the government on hold (see "Georgia after war: the political landscape", 26 August 2008). Patriotism aside, though, the truth is that the opposition has not known how to capitalise on August's dramatic turn of events. The coalition of opposition forces has appeared weak and divided. Its more radical elements, like Kakha Kukava of the Sakartvelos Konservatiuli Partia (Georgian Conservative Party), have urged street-protest but, until very recently, others have edged away from confrontation. Some of the small parties that form the United Opposition have broken away and divisions have surfaced over the leadership. This has played into the government's hands.

The opposition has not helped its own cause either by continuing to boycott parliament - in protest  at what it claims was a rigged election in January 2008 (see "Mikhail Saakashvili's bitter victory", 11 January 2008). As a consequence, the government has faced no parliamentary pressure over the handling of the August war. Despite a demand by former speaker of parliament Nino Burdzhanadze for the government to answer forty-three questions on the conduct of the war, and despite the creation of a "parliamentary commission for the study of the August events", no conclusions have yet been reached.

For a short while after the Russian invasion, the possibility appeared to emerge of an alliance between opposition forces and key figures who had either left Saakashvili's National Movement or were thought to be contemplating doing so. This has proved a chimera. But new political forces do appear to be emerging on the Georgian scene. Burdzhanadze set up her own Foundation for Democracy and Development in July 2008, and is planning a return to the centre of the political scene. The widely respected former prime minister, Zurab Noghaideli, also plans to step up his political involvement.
Among openDemocracy's recent articles on Georgian politics, including the war with Russia in August 2008:

Thomas de Waal, "The Russia-Georgia tinderbox" (16 May 2008)

Alexander Rondeli, "Georgia's search for itself" (8 July 2008)

Donald Rayfield, "The Georgia-Russia conflict: lost territory, found nation" (13 August 2008)

Neal Ascherson, "After the war: recognising reality in Abkhazia and Georgia" (15 August 2008)

George Hewitt, "Abkhazia and South Ossetia: heart of conflict, key to solution" (18 August 2008)

Ivan Krastev, "Russia and the Georgia war: the great-power trap" (19 August 2008)

Paul Rogers, "Russia and Iran: crisis of the west, rise of the rest" (21 August 2008)

Ghia Nodia, "Russian war and Georgian democracy" (22 August 2008)

Vicken Cheterian, "Georgia's forgotten legacy" (3 September 2008)

Martin Shaw, "After the Georgia war: the challenge to citizen action" (22 September 2008)

Katinka Barysch, "Europe and the Georgia-Russia conflict" (30 September 2008)

Plus: openDemocracy's Russia section reports, debates and blogs the Georgia war.
There is talk too that Georgia's popular ambassador to the United Nations, Irakli Alasania, may enter politics. He has yet to confirm this himself, but his comments on internal affairs (not his official remit at all) in an interview for the Georgian Times (20 October 2008) are revealing. In speaking of how Nato was likely to consider a renewed Georgian application for a membership plan, he said that "major importance would be attached to the deepening of the democratic process in Georgia and of ensuring the independence of the media, most notably television media".

An alliance involving these figures could pose a genuine challenge to the National Movement's parliamentary domination - but it is unlikely to emerge in the near future. Neither Burdzhanadze nor Noghaideli have developed their own party apparatuses yet; but the former speaker at least seems determined to maintain political pressure for change - albeit only by constitutional means. She has written an open letter addressed to Mikhail Saakashvili which was published on 24 October in the Georgian daily Rezonansi and that this parliament should see out its term. In it she argues for elections "within a reasonable timeframe" as the way out of "the grave political crisis" (see "Burjanadze Ups the Ante on Former Ally", Civil Georgia, 24 October 2008).

It is not clear whether Burdzhandaze is referring to presidential or parliamentary elections, but her scornful depiction of the parliament as "a fictional body" carries the implication that this is where her intentions lie. She does not specify a timetable either, though it may be that spring 2009 - a target envisaged by other opposition leaders - is her focus.

The letter is another move in a delicate political game. But overall, the outlook for the opposition does not look good. If it consents to take up its seats in what Burdzhanadze calls the "one-party parliament", it looks weak; but if it takes to the streets in looks disloyal.

The frustration is beginning to tell. Pikria Chikhradzeof the Akhali Memarjveneebi (New Rights Party) announced on 21 October that some opposition parties were going to launch a new type of opposition movement, which would "work closely with international organisations and representatives of the international community"; but she refused to explain exactly what the New Rights had in mind. She set the launch-date for 7 November, the first anniversary of last year's violent dispersal of an opposition rally by the police.

Another of the opposition leaders, former presidential candidate Levan Gachechiladze, has called for a wave of protest against the government beginning on 7 November. But this is a risky strategy. There seems to be little appetite in Georgia for street-protest and little support for the opposition either.   For a while in 2007 it captured the national mood and appeared to give it direction but the political scene has now moved on. Nor is it clear what a wave of demonstrations would be intended to achieve. The opposition says it wants a free media, an independent judiciary and electoral reform but Saakashvili himself admits that these are necessary. It is unlikely that  the demonstration on 7 November will bring anything like the support of a year ago.

The president's world

This is so not least because Russian troops still occupy Georgian land. Leaving aside South Ossetia and Abkhazia, they are dug in in Akhalgori district, which is just 40 kilometres from the Georgian capital and was incontestably governed from Tbilisi before August. Georgians appear to take the view for now that any action that risks public disorder would play into the hands of the Russians. These are critical days for the opposition. A failure to mobilise support in November could lead to political marginalisation.

This suggests that for the moment Saakashvili's position is strong. He would be wise, though, not to be complacent. He has acknowledged the need for reform but Georgians and - it seems, the international community - are looking for more than words. Niki Rurua, a member of his close inner circle of advisors, insists Saakashvili is sincere in his commitment to reform and that he understands its urgency. He adds too that Saakashvili is ready to open  the government to constructively minded members of the opposition (see "Georgia: the aftermath", Sunday Herald, 19 October 2008).

But he rejects the demand made by figures such as Burdzhanadze for early parliamentary elections. Rurua insists there is no popular demand for elections; that they would be divisive at a time when the state is still in danger from Russia; and very expensive to organise amid straitened circumstances.

All this may very well be true, but unless Mikheil Saakashvili acts on his promises to carry through a second wave of democratic reforms it could change - and quickly. There is a great deal of pent-up energy following the August war and much frustration that could yet take a negative turn. This is likely to be compounded in the months ahead by the slowdown in the economy - in part as a result of the war but also the inevitable consequence of the global financial crisis.  In Georgia, like everywhere else, credit is drying up fast. Georgia's construction boom is coming to an end and investors are staying away.

On a visit to Georgia in mid-October, United States assistant secretary of state Daniel Fried made clear that Washington expects Saakashvili to honour his promises. Georgia, he said, needs to make progress in strengthening its democratic institutions. "As these institutions are strengthened - independent media, a strong independent judiciary, a strong viable opposition - the Georgian state will strengthen and it is up to the Georgian government but also the Georgian society - everyone needs to do their part in building these institutions."

If domestic patience is limited, the patience and commitment of the international community is not unconditional either. A new administration in Washington (especially if it is headed by Barack Obama, given John McCain's close ties to Georgia's president) may not be as understanding of Georgia's demands as its predecessor, particularly if the government is perceived to be dragging its feet on reform. True, Georgia's partners and friends in the west have been generous: a conference in Brussels on 22 October attended by sixty-seven nations pledged $4.55 billion in aid and loans - a third of it from the European Union and over a fifth from the United States. But its delivery could hinge on evidence of domestic progress - particularly in media reform (see David Kakabadze, "The Morning After Georgia's ‘Day Of Joy'", RFE/RL, 24 October 2008).

In 2007, Reporters without Borders rated Georgia sixty-sixth in its table of international media freedom; in 2008 it has fallen to 120th. That's a catastrophic fall that reflects badly on the country's international prestige. It is also a factor in domestic politics; Nino Burdzhanadze's open letter in Rezonansi on 24 October calling for fresh elections says they should be held "only under the conditions of an improved election code, a healthy electoral environment and free media."

Yet the fact remains that Georgia is still a beacon of democratic light in the post-Soviet space - albeit one that gleams a little less brightly today than it once did. With international assistance, Georgia could achieve much more but to do so its government will have to concentrate on building a consensus within society and finding a way to move beyond the catastrophe of August 2008. A failure to do so could put all the gains of the last few years in jeopardy. 

Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement won a decisive victory in Georgia's parliamentary elections on 21 May 2008, so crushing indeed that the next parliament will be almost as dominated by the UNM as its predecessor. The Central Election Commission declared on 23 May that the ruling party had won 59.5% of the vote, consigning the main opposition bloc (the nine-party National Council-New Rights coalition) to the margins with only 17.7%.

That is bad news for the development of Georgian democracy and maybe even bad news for the president himself. At this stage in its political evolution, Georgia needs a parliament to act as a credible check on the power of an overbearing executive. The result means that that is not going to happen.

Robert Parsons is international editor of France 24. He earned a doctorate at Glasgow University for a thesis on the origins of Georgian nationalism. He was the BBC's Moscow correspondent (1993-2002), and worked at RFE/RL as director of its Georgian service, senior correspondent and chief producer for multimedia projects

Also by Robert Parsons in openDemocracy:

"Russia and Georgia: a lover's revenge"
(6 October 2006)

"Georgia: progress, interrupted"
(16 November 2007)

"Georgia's race to the summit"
(4 January 2008)

"Mikheil Saakashvii's bitter victory"
(11 January 2008)

"Georgia, Abkhazia, Russia: the war option" (13 May 2008) Georgia's disparate and hopelessly disorganised opposition continues in the same state of denial it has been in for some considerable time. The wine magnate Levan Gachechiladze - unlikely leader of the National Council-New Rights alliance - was threatening even before the polls had opened that he would bring 100,000 people onto the streets if he was denied victory. After its comprehensive defeat, the opposition said it would boycott and attempt to block the new parliamentary session (which opens on 10 June 2008) on the grounds that the election was unfair. This guarantees that political tensions will continue, without offering any path to their resolution.

Davit Gamqrelidze, another leading figure in the alliance, claimed that the opposition won over 40% of the vote - attributing this calculation to his side's own observers. This was a "famous victory" that over the "losers" of the UNM, he declared. Gamqrelidze, rarely outdone in the rhetorical stakes, added: "Together with the people, we must cancel the elections results and call new parliamentary elections."

The signs are that few Georgians are credulous enough to believe the assessment or follow the path suggested. The declared result almost exactly matched the results of an independent opinion poll conducted a week before the election, and echoed too the finding of independent exit polls on the day. Any manipulation of the count - and there were indeed problems with the conduct of the election - will not have affected the precise outcome or its overall shape. And a new round of elections is the last thing most Georgians want.

But even apart from residual doubts over the integrity of the process, the election is hardly a credit to Georgia's political system. The experience has (as did the presidential vote in January 2008 which saw Mikheil Saakashvili elected to a second term in office) highlighted both the intellectual poverty of the opposition and the immaturity of Georgian democracy.

Georgia has had fifteen years since it regained independence in 1991 amid the collapse of the Soviet Union to develop an effective, issue-based party system. It has failed to do so: politics remains dominated by personality, people vote for leaders not party programmes (indeed, with the exception of the UNM and the Republican Party, there is scarcely a political programme on view).

It gets worse: for little good results when a party tries to develop one. The fate of the Republican Party, led by Davit Usupashvili, is emblematic here. The party has largely sought to avoid the politics of confrontation and character assassination, and has focused instead on proposing a set of liberal economic and political reforms designed to maintain Georgia's western and pro-Nato orientation but rearrange the balance of power between the executive and legislature.

Usupashvili's reward was that the Republican Party got less than 4% of the vote and will not be represented in the new parliament. Georgian democracy may also be the loser here.

Under foreign eyes

Mikheil Saakashvili's concern in this election was not just to win, but to be seen to win honestly. Before the ballot, a succession of top officials from international organisations - among them the European Union, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Pace), the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and Parliamentary Assembly (PA), and Nato - had suggested that Georgia's hopes of continuing support (and especially early entry into Nato, which the alliance's Bucharest summit in April 2008 put on hold) could hinge on its conduct. This helps explain why Saakashvili made several appeals to public officials before the vote to insist that they ensured it was free and fair.

In the event, the OSCE/ODIHR electoral mission to Georgia conducted intensive research during the campaign, which highlighted numerous flaws. These included a blurring of the lines between state activities and electoral campaigning, intimidation, and unbalanced media coverage (although it also noted that public TV was the only station that offered viewers a more or less balanced picture).

Among openDemocracy's many articles on Georgian politics:

Neal Ascherson, "Tbilisi, Georgia: the rose revolution's rocky road"
(15 July 2005)

Donald Rayfield, "Georgia and Russia: with you, without you" (3 October 2006)

George Hewitt, "Abkhazia: land in limbo"
(10 October 2006)
Vicken Cheterian,

"Georgia's arms race" (4 July 2007)

Donald Rayfield, "Russia and Georgia: a war of perceptions" (24 August 2007)

Alexander Rondeli, "Georgia: politics after revolution"
(14 November 2007) There is no question that these things happened and that Georgia needs to acknowledge and address the problems. At the same time, the early post-election evidence suggests that the country's institutions are making progress in the way elections are conducted. The OSCE's assessment identified the same sort of deficiencies - particularly in counting and tabulation procedures - that had marred earlier polls, but said the day had generally passed in a calm and orderly fashion.

The International Election Observation Mission, which observed voting in 1,500 of the country's 3,630 polling stations, "assessed the voting process as good or very good in 92 per cent of polling stations visited". But it added that despite efforts made to conduct the election in line with OSCE and Council of Europe commitments, their implementation had been "uneven and incomplete".

A troubled polity

Mikheil Saakashvili's double victory in the elections of January and May 2008 should in principle "settle" the contest over Georgia's political direction for the foreseeable future. But if these exercises in Georgian democracy instead leave this contest unresolved, the responsibility belongs also to a political opposition whose unrelenting hostility to the president makes the prospect of compromise in the national interest almost unimaginable (see Jonathan Wheatley, "Georgia's democractic stalemate", 14 April 2008).

Saakashvili had made an effort after the presidential election to bridge the dangerous gulf emerging in Georgian politics, by offering the opposition concessions such as the promise of posts in government, greater consultation and electoral reform. He followed this initiative in April by proposing a regular forum in which opposition leaders and the government could together review national-security matters.

There was brief hope of a breakthrough here, especially when agreement was reached in February on a new board for Georgia's public-broadcasting service reflecting the balance of political forces. Since then, the relationship has gone from bad to worse. The opposition continued to present demands which it backed with ultimatums that threatened demonstrations and hunger-strikes unless its terms were met - an approach that has proved counterproductive.

The hunger-strikes dissolved in ignominy and the turnout at demonstrations fell dramatically from their peak of November 2007, when some 70,000 filled Tbilisi's Rustaveli Avenue for several days in a row. There is a wider failure of political strategy here: the evidence suggests that most Georgians are tired of demonstrations, hunger-strikes, ultimatums and the intemperate language that characterises Georgian political debate. What most people want now are calm, stability, economic prosperity and jobs.

Saakashvili played on these longings to good effect in the last days of the electoral campaign, when he conceded a need for greater transparency to end the confrontational nature of Georgian politics, and again promised the opposition a more consensual approach. In calling for unity in the face of external threat - always a sure-fire vote-winner in Georgia, and more so when the country genuinely feels harassed by Russia - he proposed strengthening the powers of parliament, establishing a regular dialogue with the opposition and engaging it in a systematic way in the decision-making process. Nine days after the election, on 30 May 2008, he extended an offer to grant the opposition seats in the cabinet and the position of vice-speaker of parliament. The opposition remains scornful, its loudest voices continuing to describe Saakashvili variously as a fascist, a terrorist and a bloodthirsty dictator.

A northern shadow

The immaturity of Georgian political culture will remain an obstacle for any government trying to push through political reform. One of the many tests facing Saakashvili will be whether he is able to rise above the almost ritual abuse and name-calling - of which he himself is a noted exponent. The brutal response to the opposition demonstrations in November did serious damage to his international credentials as a democratic reformer and to his standing with the Georgian people. He can't afford to make another mistake like that.

But to lead Georgia to higher ground and to take the people and (in time) the opposition with him, he and his government will need the committed support both of the United States and the European Union. This support can also take the form of rigorous criticism and principled pressure to improve Georgia's governance, especially in the absence of effective internal checks and balances; but this should be combined with clear acknowledgment of the distance Georgia's government has travelled in the four years since the "rose revolution" of 2003-04.

Georgia's interlocutors should consider too that the country has had difficulty in functioning at all in these years, let alone in carrying though an ambitious reform programme, when it has been on the receiving end of constant and intense pressure from Moscow. A Russia ruled by Vladimir Putin has done its utmost to ensure that Georgian democracy does not become a model for others in the post-Soviet space to follow. There is nothing to suggest that the presidency of Putin's chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev will follow a different course.

The international community may have given its (albeit qualified) seal of approval to Mikheil Saakashvili's contested victory in Georgia's presidential elections on 5 January 2008, but Georgia itself is bitterly divided over the outcome. The official figures conclude that Saakashvili, the incumbent, received 53.38% of the vote against 25.66% for the main opposition candidate, Levan Gachechiladze. But the opposition has refused to accept the validity of this result; Gachechiladze says he has been robbed of the second-round play-off that would have ensued on 19 January if Saakashvili had fallen below the 50% mark. The emotional temperature in the capital, Tbilisi - where Gachechiladze beat the president into second place - is particularly high.

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia told a meeting of doctors in Tbilisi on 14 November 2007 that his decision to order the break up the opposition demonstration a week earlier had been necessary to prevent the country sliding back to the chaos and civil confrontation of the mid-1990s. The justification contains an element of truth - but one that also underlines the extent of his miscalculation.

The demonstration on Rustaveli Avenue in central Tbilisi had entered into its sixth day when Saakashvili decided to act. Popular irritation at the disruption caused by the blockage of the capital's main street was growing - as was alarm at the opposition's call for a permanent street protest until Saakashvili resigned. After the turmoil of the 1990s, there is no stomach in Georgia for revolution.