On March 31, Prosecutor General Archil Kbilashvili threatened to summon Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for questioning in at least three parallel criminal investigations. One of these would focus on the president’s responsibility for the 2008 war with Russia.Separately, on April 1, Public Defender (Ombudsman) Ucha... MORE

At the end of March, Mukhamed Cherkesov, the leader of the Circassian organization in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, addressed a plea to republican officials to help Circassian refugees from Syria. Cherkesov alleged that Syrian Circassians have been encountering unusually steep bureaucratic hurdles in Karachaevo-Cherkessia and been forced to... MORE

On March 25, Georgia’s parliament voted in favor of constitutional amendments that significantly reduce the president’s powers to influence domestic and foreign policy (https://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=25887). According to the amendments, the president will have no right to dismiss the government without parliament’s consent. Currently, the Georgian Dream... MORE

Objectively, the Georgian Dream government is a legatee of the Mikheil Saakashvili government’s trademark foreign policy. National interests require the new government to build on the legacy of its predecessor.On March 16, at the German Marshall Fund’s (GMF) annual Brussels Forum, Georgian Defense Minister Irakli... MORE

The Barack Obama administration declared victory for the “democratic process” in Georgia immediately after that country’s October 1, 2012, parliamentary elections. It defined that victory narrowly as an “orderly transfer of power” from the incumbent government to the election-winning opposition. This would in turn guarantee... MORE

The Barack Obama administration publicly called for an “orderly transfer of power” during Georgia’s electoral campaign. President Obama first gave this message, publicly and (still more explicitly) privately, to the visiting Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili as early as January 2012 in Washington. “Orderly transfer of... MORE

The United States had strongly influenced Georgia’s politics during Mikheil Saakashvili’s presidency. This influence is waning since the regime change that has empowered Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili. The October 2012 parliamentary elections have effected this still-incomplete regime change, pending a constitutional transition period until the... MORE

Georgia’s October 2012 parliamentary elections amounted to a plebiscite on the policies of Mikheil Saakashvili’s government. Voters responded by giving his rival Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream 85 parliamentary seats, against Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM), which gained 65 seats in the 150-seat chamber. The votes... MORE

In October 2012, Georgia held the freest parliamentary elections in the country’s two decades of experience with competitive multi-party politics. Also for the first time, the opposition defeated the government, in a contest on a “level playing field.” This, however, was not simply a competition... MORE

On March 4, renowned Georgian folk dance and music ensemble Erisioni departed to Russia for a tour, culminating in a series of grandiose concerts at the Kremlin on March 9–10 (Imedi TV, March 4). Two other Georgian folk ensembles, Rustavi and National Ballet Sukhishvilebi, as... MORE