The West once saw it as a beacon of liberty
Tbilisi airport to the old town—a web of steep cobbled streets with ornate balconies and the mouthwatering smell ofcheese bread—bears the name of George W. Bush, the first American president to visit the small Caucasian country, in 2005.
Mr Saakashvili modernised Georgia but also became enmeshed in scandal and repression. After standing down once he had been termed out as president, he fled in 2013 fearing arrest at the hands of Bidzina Ivanishvili, a reclusive businessman who made his money in Russia, served briefly as prime minister, and has in effect ruled Georgia ever since, though he holds no formal government post.
Georgian Dream, the party Mr Ivanishvili founded, has held on to power by stoking fears of turmoil and of Mr Saakashvili’s return to power. But while Georgians may be disenchanted by their former president’s politics, they are also repelled by the inhumanity of his treatment. “People are more supportive of Saakashvili as a prisoner, than they are of Saakashvili as a politician,” says Iago Kachkachishvili, a Georgian sociologist.Georgia’s chances of integrating into Europe.
Georgia is still far less authoritarian than Russia or Belarus, but it is fast drifting into the Kremlin’s orbit. To appease Mr Putin, its government has refused to join sanctions against Russia or return an anti-aircraft missile system that Ukraine gave Georgia in 2008. “I don’t understand why the Georgian government has shackled itself to the Kremlin,” Ben Hodges, a former commander of AmericanMany Georgians do seem to object.
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