An optimist against the background of a defeat

The president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili is treated in different ways. Some call him an authoritarian leader, while others praise him for reforms he conducted in Georgia, which was literally consumed by corruption before.

Therefore, a lot of Ukrainian politicians, experts, and journalists found it interesting to talk to the Georgian leader, whose party lost the elections and the power recently. This meeting was organized thanks to the initiative of the head of Arsenii Yatseniuk’s Open Ukraine Foundation. It took place at the Intercontinental Hotel.

It has become a tradition for Saakashvili to start with a little speech in Ukrainian, since he graduated from the Kyiv Institute of International Affairs. Moreover, Georgian president was absolutely open with the audience. When asked by Yatseniuk if he considered himself to be an authoritarian leader, Saakashvili said: “I view myself with a large amount of sense of humor, and dictators and sense of humor tend to not intersect.” This statement is not completely true though, because Stalin had a specific sense of humor. And some democrats never had it at all.

Indeed, Saakashvili’s party lost the elections, and the head of Georgia did not demonstrate any desire to preserve power whatsoever, as it often happens in cases of authoritative regimes.

Instead, he explained, “we could have passed the power later, but we did it in order to avoid statements that we impeded someone’s programs implementation.”

It is true that Saakashvili managed to succeed in a number of things, and the world indices prove that. For example, he noted that Georgia was the only developing country that was among the first 10 in “The Ease of Doing Business” rank: it occupied the 9th spot. “We built 6,000 kilometers of roads, constructed 150 new hospitals, lowered the poverty level from 50 to 18 percent. People felt the taste of what it means to live without corruption and feel safe in the streets,” Saakashvili said.

“During the eight years, we provided the nonstop development of success, and it will not go anywhere,” he added. “People can get tired of a certain government, but the society cannot escape itself.” Saakashvili confessed that some experts advised him to conduct the reforms slower. But they could not act in a different way. “This is our national trait: we, Georgians, like to do things fast, both good and bad. That is why I hope that what starts so fast, will end so fast as well,” said Georgian president hinting at Ivanishvili’s government rule.

When commenting on arrests of his supporters, he said that if anyone thought it was possible to solve political matters through arrests of the opposition members, they should realize it would not change the opposition, and it was not a method, it was inertia of the Soviet thinking.

Saakashvili explained that his colleagues, a tax service inspector with zero corruption level and MIA head, are accused not of attempts to use their official position to profit, but of some minor violations. For example, head of the General Staff was arrested in the defense ministry because he was accused of forcing soldiers to jog without shirts on. Georgian leader added that he had to do the exactly same thing during his service in Ukraine.

When talking about the democratic rollback during Ivanishvili’s term as the prime minister, Saakashvili said that the government progressed when Ivanishvili said immediately that he would not fulfill his promises. However, the president is convinced that there will be no rollback of democracy, since the change of the government happened through elections.

Saakashvili admitted that he thought about the strength reserves in case of the democratic rollback in the country. He thinks that the youth, that protested against his government as well, can become a counterpoise. “The youth is open to everything new, that is why it will always be on the side of the future. Especially since they felt the results of their work.”

Saakashvili treats restoration of a Stalin monument in one Georgian village, which was dismantled a year ago, in a rather calm fashion. “I doubt Stalin dominates in the minds of Georgians. This is rather a reaction to what is happening at the moment. We are in a transitional period, and everything that had a plus sign before, will now have a minus. It is also a process of revelation of something different, and renovation of the monument is an expression of freedom in some way. However, I think that this is a temporary phenomenon. But of course, Soviet inertia is still present within our societies,” he said.

According to Saakashvili, presence of the Soviet mentality is caused by the fact that Ukraine and Georgia skipped the development of capitalism, and that is why people never learned the true price of things. He explains appearance of slogans like “Bring the USSR back!” with people’s desire to come back to their young years. But both Ukrainian and Georgian societies are oriented towards the future, the president is sure. He expressed a hope to see a new class rise in both countries, a class that will view the government as a partner in the game rules establishment and creation of infrastructure.

Saakashvili also told about the way the events unfolded at the beginning of the war in August 2008. According to him, the Ambassador of the United States John Tefft came to him and said that Russia wanted to occupy Georgian territory. And Saakashvili asked for Tefft’s opinion on this. The latter replied: “We are thinking.” As it is now known, the US sent an aircraft carrier to that region, their airplanes were ready to be sent to the conflict area, and this made Russian troops stop. It was a good thing that the US decided to save democracy in Georgia, said Saakashvili. “There are a lot of countries in the world that do not need to be saved. And as soon as we move to this state, we have a friend around the corner, who is waiting for this to happen, waiting for a moment to use it. That is why we have no other choice but to move towards Europe,” Georgian president stressed.

When answering Yatseniuk’s question about what influence could the assignment of the MAP to Georgia and Ukraine at the Bucharest Summit have had on the events in Georgia, Saakashvili said he was absolutely sure that it would have made the war impossible.

And when he was asked at the end, when he felt a desire to become a president, he said: “Ask my grandmother, she is sitting in the sixth row now.” At the same time, he admitted: “I have always wanted to change the world, at least that around me, but I had to change myself for that in the first place. I think that is the right way to do things: change the world by changing yourself first. And I have always been very ambitious about changing the whole society.”

COMMENTARY

Leonid KRAVCHUK, the first president of Ukraine:

“I have noticed long time ago that president Saakashvili is a person of European kind. He is not arrogant. When he sits and talks, there is nothing of a leader breaking through. In our country, it is common for a politician to be a ‘leader’ first of all, and then a human being. Saakashvili, on the other hand, speaks like a person with firm beliefs, created in the result of a life experience and observations. It is easy to notice that he has plenty of the latter. He treats the defeat of his party in a cool way. He is sure that Georgia has no alternative to democracy, and going back to times when democracy was oppressed is almost impossible.

“He behaved absolutely normally, smiled, and made jokes. I liked that he has a sense of humor. He referred to examples and comparisons that were on the verge of lambent delicate humor.

“Today, I saw Saakashvili as a person who does not dramatize the problems of his party’s defeat and thinks about the future of Georgia. I believe that Georgia will remain a democratic country, that there will be no rollback of democracy, that it will only move forward. This is a position of the country’s policy, position of the statesman, position of the president.

“I share Saakashvili’s opinion that authoritarian people have no sense of humor. As a rule, they have not advanced far in the spiritual sense, because authoritarianism is a sign of reaction to internal slavery. A dictator is a slave on the inside, and when he comes to top, he wants everyone else to become slaves. This is a position of a slave. Authoritarianism is a position of a slave that has obtained power. He took the reins but never got rid of the slave inside. So, what sense of humor can we talk about in this case. People have a sense of humor if they read a lot, see a lot, talk to others, are in harmony with themselves. Then their natural humor appears. But a slave cannot achieve that.”