Page 69 - bne Magazine Apri20

bne April 2020
Opinion 69
Girgvliani, a young bank employee. Girgvliani was found dead in a Tbilisi suburb hours after publicly insulting Merabishvili’s wife Tamar Salakaia. (It has never been established whether the banker died directly from his injuries or froze to death after being left by his assailants.)
Merabishvili chose to personally oversee the investigation, leading to questions about the legitimacy of the outcome. Eventually, four Ministry of Interior employees, Geronti Alania, Mikheil Bibiluridze, Avtandil Aptsiauri, and Aleksandre Gachava, were tried and convicted for the murder. Notably, investigators working under Merabishvili’s direction found that the murder was unconnected to the young banker’s tirade against Salakaia.
While Merabishvili is not proven to have directly ordered Girgvliani’s murder, at the very least he interfered to prevent an impartial investigation. Some opposition voices go even further, speculating that such a drastic action by Ministry
of Interior officials could not have taken place without Merabishvili’s approval.
In 2007, another incident, less shocking but larger in scope, indicated how far the National Movement was willing to go to maintain its hold over power. That November, large anti- corruption protests were used to justify a harsh government crackdown. After President Mikheil Saakashvili declared a nationwide state of emergency, Merabishvili’s security forces violently dispersed protestors from downtown Tbilisi and assaulted TV stations reporting critically on the government’s handling of the situation. The government blamed the protests, which were largely financed by pro-opposition businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili, on a Kremlin plot to overthrow the government.
Then, in 2012, less than two weeks before parliamentary elections, political operatives working against the National Movement released video footage showing the torture and sexual abuse of prisoners in Tbilisi’s Gldani prison. (Note: Merabishvili, who oversaw Georgia’s penal system from 2004
to 2008, was not directly implicated in the scandal.) While the government hand-waved the abuse as an isolated incident, it added to steadily-growing public resentment of the government. Some commentators argued that it was a fitting indicator of the kind of state the National Movement had built. As Charles Fairbanks, a long-time Georgia watcher and board member of the National Endowment for Democracy, wrote at the time:
“I think Georgians have reacted as intensely as they have to the videos on the belief that they symbolize an underlying reality in the country. What people watched on TV wasn't just isolated acts but a brutal system leading to a very specifically bureaucratic program of violence: prisoners being lined up in an orderly, bureaucratic row, holding their files, to be beaten, taunted, and often defiled.”
There are other cases of abuse allegedly involving Merabishvili, too many to recount here.
The Perks of Not Being Hated
The United National Movement’s electoral defeat in 2012 in favour of Georgian Dream, an upstart political coalition that lacked a cohesive ideology, can be explained in simple terms: a significant portion of the electorate was exhausted after nearly nine years of upheaval (a dramatic cycle of reform, consolidation, and abuse of power; Russia’s invasion in 2008) and fed up with the National Movement’s arrogance and penchant for violence.
When Georgian Dream won an even larger majority in 2016, it was less because it had earned the support of the public and more because it had avoided inviting its hatred. In fact, Georgian Dream received a lower share of the popular vote than it had in 2012, a quirk of Georgia’s mixed-majoritarian electoral system that heavily favours incumbents.
After a period of relative calm and positive reform between 2012 and 2016, Georgia has undergone clear democratic backsliding. Both citizens and the country’s Western partners have grown frustrated with GD’s unwillingness to implement judicial reforms. The country has been led by four prime ministers in as many years. The party’s billionaire bankroller Bidzina Ivanishvili has exuded more arrogance as his grip over the country has grown tighter.
Ghosts Need Not Apply
Enter Merabishvili. Despite his chequered past, the former interior minister still enjoys much popular support from many of the people who still pine for Saakashvili. His path to re-enter politics is unclear, however. “Unfortunately, my closest friends and comrades are in different parties. I will, of course, meet all of them, listen to them and then make decisions.”
One path would be to reconnect with his former colleagues from the United National Movement, but its not clear if he
has much to offer to the former ruling party’s revival. In
early 2017, the National Movement split into two parties, the offshoot, European Georgia, attempting to distance itself from Saakashvili and from the abuses committed between 2004 and 2012. Those people who stayed behind, including polarizing figures such as Nika Melia, Tina Bokuchava, and Salome Samadashvili, lack popularity outside of a committed group of party activists. Even Saakashvili appears uninterested in the ex-interior minister’s services, advising Merabishvili “not to engage in politics anymore.”
Merabishvili’s second option would be to reconcile his former friends. But with European Georgia rebranding as
a reasonable voice for reform and ditch its reputation for regularly visiting violence on its opponents. Party Chairman Giga Bokeria welcomed Merabishvili’s release from prison, referring to him as a “friend” and a victim of “political repression.” He did not, however, discuss the immediate political implications of Merabishvili’s return. Nor did he declare his intention to work with Merabishvili in the future.
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