In two days Georgia will go to the polls to elect its president after street protests in downtown Tbilisi turned violent and a State of Emergency was declared. For many, the use of tear gas and riot police to disperse an opposition protest was way too heavy handed, but according to the Georgian constitution, after the State of Emergency was lifted, new elections had to be held.

Article 46

[…]

2. In case of introduction of a state of emergency or martial law throughout the whole territory of the state, elections of the President of Georgia, the Parliament of Georgia or other representative bodies of Georgia shall be held upon the cancellation of the state. In case of introduction of a state of emergency in a certain part of the state the Parliament of Georgia shall adopt a decision on holding the elections throughout the other territories of the state. (acquired a new wording by the Constitutional Law of Georgia of.6 February 2004).

In retrospect, one has to wonder if that wasn’t the reason why Saakashvili reacted in such a fashion although he is also notorious for what can be at best be described as being a “hot head.” Regardless, whichever way you look at it, the 5 January 2008 presidential election is described by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) as a “vote on the record of Mikheil Saakashvili.”

As Georgia heads for a presidential election on January 5, the incumbent Mikheil Saakashvili is the favourite, but there is no certainty that he will win an easy victory.

Opinion polls give radically different assessments of the chances of Saakashvili and his six rivals, of whom businessman Levan Gachechiladze, the candidate nominated by a coalition of nine opposition parties, stands the best chance of victory. Gachechiladze is standing more as an “anti-presidential candidate”, and has pledged to change the constitution to abolish the institution of presidency if he wins.

[…]

In January 2004, Saakashvili was elected with 98 per cent of the vote. This time there are predictions that he may fail to collect more than half the vote on January 5, and will be forced into a second round on January 19.

The Ukrainian think-tank Common European Cause, which is planning to conduct an exit poll, has predicted that Gachechiladze will collect 30 per cent of the vote and Saakashvili 16 per cent.

By contrast, the Georgian Business Consulting Group, BCG, which did a survey of voters on behalf of Saakashvili’s campaign headquarters, forecast that the incumbent would be re-elected with 61 per cent of the vote. The opposition has disputed the objectivity of the survey.

The election resembles as much a referendum on the presidency of Saakashvili as a contest between candidates.

From visiting Georgia on numerous occasions since 2000, there’s no doubt that things have improved. Investment has substantially increased, corruption has been drastically reduced and salaries increased. The Georgian capital is impressive with its new development projects and the preservation of the old, historical parts of city. In the regions, there is at least talk of local democracy while everything seems as centralized in the capital as its always been here. Feudalism defines the situation outside of Yerevan.

However, there are also many problems, and true to form, Georgians appear more demanding than their Armenian counterparts.

The opposition, especially in the form of Levan Gachechiladze, appears more impressive than what exists in Armenia although some analysts consider that they are still not strong enough to contest the election and win. Perhaps that’s why Saakashvili is more moderate in his attempt to campaign than those supportive of the election favorite, prime minister Serzh Sarkisian, here.

Saakashvili has conducted a high-profile campaign and his portrait and a white number 5 on a red background – his position on the ballot-paper - adorn buses, street billboards, bus-stops and shop windows across Georgia.

The president has sought to recapture the man-of-the-people image he had during the 2003 Rose Revolution and the subsequent election, by walking through crowds, shaking hands and embracing people. In one video-clip he is shown with tears in his eyes as he meets pensioners who are refugees from Abkhazia. The opposition said the tears were faked, but Saakashvili said anyone in his position would have wept.

Widely criticised for spending too much of his first term outside Georgia and ignoring domestic issues, Saakashvili has made his main electoral slogan “Georgia Without Poverty.” He has said his priorities for a second term will be socioeconomic development and the return of the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgia.

“I am appealing to people who live below the poverty line,” said Saakashvili. “I need the support of people like you. I will dedicate the second term of my presidency to you.”

At New Year, Saakashvili travelled to the mountainous Upper Kodori Gorge, the only part of Abkhazia now under Georgian control, where he delivered a message - transmitted live on television – telling people displaced from Abkhazia that he would enable them to return home.

Nevertheless, if many achievements and improvements are noticeable in Georgia, this is not 2004 when riding high on the 2003 Rose Revolution, Saakashvili was a dead cert to win. Whereas back then he attracted an abnormal 98 percent of the vote, there are those who believe that as in Armenia, the election will go to a second round. What is also interesting is that according to the article, what matters most to Georgians is not who wins the presidential election, but how victory is attained.

“I think a second round is inevitable, as none of the candidates will get more than 25 per cent of the vote and it will be very hard to double that figure in [the next] two days,” said Sakvarelidze.

Another analyst, Archil Gegeshidze, said Saakashvili had the advantage of being the incumbent and enjoying the support of pro-government media. At the same time, said Gegeshidze, he he was in danger of losing if it came to a second round.

“I think Saakashvili will get more votes than the other candidates,” he said. “But I am not sure he will avoid a second round. If Saakashvili wins in the first round, he will not get more than 60 per cent of the vote, but if there is a second round it could go 70 per cent to the opposition and 30 per cent to Saakashvili.”

Some voters in Tbilisi say the process is as important as the result.

Tamaz Sokhadze, 37, said he would vote for the opposition, though without great conviction, but he was pleased that the election was taking place in the way it is.

“I think that despite all the negative events which have occurred recently there is one important positive element here,” he said. “It is the fact that we do not know 100 per cent if one particular candidate will win. This is the first time that we have seen that here. There is a lesson for every future president of Georgia – from the 100-per-cent poll rating that Misha [Saakashvili] had, you can plummet quickly to 20 per cent.”

Natia Abramishvili, 26, said, “The most important thing is that the elections aren’t rigged. In any case Saakashvili has been making so many mistakes recently and a rigged election could really ruin the country.”

“I don’t believe in the opposition, they are too diverse and not qualified enough in my view. They will fall out immediately after the election. I will vote for Saakashvili, I don’t see any alternative.”

No doubt the international community, especially Europe and the United States, also feels the same, and for sure, those us that believe in democracy in the South Caucasus are eagerly awaiting to see how the vote is conducted. That said, given that this is not January 2004 and that there are many reasons to dislike Saakashvili, as many Georgians will openly admit, it remains to be seen what happens next. Probably, this is not just a test for Saakashvili, but it is also a test for Georgia.

Meanwhile, in an interesting article as part of EurasiaNet’s special coverage of the election, Molly Corso writes that if youth activists partly defined the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, they are taking a back seat now. Indeed, the emergence of youth movements such as Kmara were considered key to enacting “colored revolutions” in the post-Soviet space. Nowadays, however, such activists seem to have disappeared or have become part of the ruling elite.

In 2003, the Georgian youth movement Kmara (Enough) emerged as one of the headline-grabbers of the Rose Revolution. More than four years later, the buzz surrounding Georgian youth activists appears to have faded. Although young activists for both former President Mikheil Saakashvili and the opposition have worked for weeks on the campaign trail, political scientists believe that their impact on Georgia’s January 5 vote will be minimal.

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For pro-Saakashvili youth activists, meet-and-greets are their specialty. The Youth Office of Saakashvili Supporters claims to have 3,000 registered volunteers in Tbilisi, with offices also in the regional centers of Kutaisi, Georgia’s second largest city, and Telavi, center of the Kakheti wine region.

On the opposition side, a slightly stronger attempt has been made at grabbing public attention with protests or other public displays. On December 20, youth activists connected with the pro-Gachechiladze Equality Institute briefly snarled traffic in downtown Tbilisi with a march from Tbilisi State University to parliament, where they hung anti-Saakashvili posters and white neck scarves, a symbol of the Gachechiladze campaign. Twelve activists were arrested on December 30 for spraying graffiti. Seven were released from custody and five were fined 400 lari (about $252) each for the damage, local media reported.

[…]

Political scientist Malkhaz Matsaberidze, however, maintains that the nature of the election limits any real impact the youth groups might have. While Georgian youth have traditionally been very politically active, activism alone, he said, could not address the “biggest problem” in Georgian politics — the lack of a strong opposition candidate.

“People are disappointed with the actions of authorities. … But they don’t see any force in the opposition, [especially] since the footage that was aired,” Matsaberidze said in reference to audio clips reportedly of opposition candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili discussing plans with an Interior Ministry official for an alleged post-election uprising. Patarkatsishvili has since indicated that he will withdraw his candidacy on January 4, a day before the elections.

Nonetheless, states Dr. Tina Gogueliani, while youth groups alone are not enough for Saakashvili or Gachechiladze to win, they can “contribute to victory” for a party.

Well, to be fair, one expat specialist in Tbilisi maintains that the extent of Kmara remains over-rated and says that there were actually little more than two dozen really genuinely involved with the movement, although again, the situation has some parallels with Armenia, but with some important exceptions. Firstly, youth in Armenia are largely apathetic although there appear to be more students that say they will vote for Serzh Sarkisian than an opposition candidate.

Secondly, Armenia’s embryonic youth movement, Sksela, has largely failed to achieve much by way of attracting support or empowering youth and are too closely linked to individuals and organizations inseparable from the radical opposition and Levon Ter Petrosian. For now at least, they remain largely inactive and while there are those within the movement who genuinely believe in democracy, there are many more with influence who openly support the former president.

Sorry, but that is not going to sway many young Armenians who want to look to the future and not the past when they can remember growing up as children without electricity. Moreover, as can be seen in Georgia now, there is probably more potential in those openly and directly party-affiliated youth groups than “movements’ which can hardly attract more than two dozen young people when a free concert isn’t on offer.

It’s a pity, because a non-partisan pro-democracy youth movement would be very welcome in both republics. Even so, perhaps the Georgian situation is also of interest for election-watchers and those interested in empowering youth in Armenia.

Giorgi Kandelaki, a Kmara activist during the Rose Revolution and former Saakashvili administration analyst, also downplays any comparison with Georgia’s new youth movements.

The most “fundamental” difference is Georgia’s current political climate and the atmosphere that existed under ex-President Shevardnadze, Kandelaki says. “[T]hey are trying to imitate some of the methods that Kmara used,” he said in a telephone interview from Vilnius. “But still there are significant differences between them.”

While Kmara’s demonstrations were used to protest elections rigged by the Shevardnadze government and to regain Georgia’s democratic orientation, today’s youth movements cannot put such claims against the Saakashvili government, he said.

With the strong crackdown on opposition supporters in November 2007, perhaps this isn’t the “colored revolutionary” world of 2003-4 anymore. Certainly, if the 2003 Rose Revolution encouraged the radical opposition here, the November crackdown must surely have given the government here enough to persuade Armenians not to follow suit.

Still, what happens in the Georgian presidential election on 5 January is of vital importance. Not just for Georgia, but also for Armenia and Azerbaijan which will hold presidential elections this year.

With Armenia’s vote a month and a half away, what happens in Georgia — and how the election is perceived by the international community — will first have implications here. At the end of the day, however, even if the election is not seen as “clean” as in 2004, it must at least meet with some kind of even muted approval even with some reservations from the U.S. and Europe.

Meanwhile, in the hope of finding something humorous in the otherwise depressing process of holding elections in the South Caucasus, Georgia Ink is the blog to watch. Well, I hope so, anyway. If the presidential election in Georgia resembles those held in Armenia and Azerbaijan we’re all in trouble.