Ivanishvili has failed even as dictator, ex-Pres Saakashvili

Georgia’s former president Mikheil Saakashvili has claimed Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili has created “chaos” rather than establishing “a functioning dictatorship,” while pledging to end the “restoration of the tragedy of the 1990s.”

Saakashvili made the remarks during a court hearing in Tbilisi on Monday.

“Ivanishvili has failed in everything, including as a dictator,” Saakashvili said, arguing that a dictatorship by definition involves strict order and therefore excludes chaos. He accused Ivanishvili of believing that repression and imprisonment were sufficient to exercise power.

Saakashvili also said Georgia should reject a “Russian-imposed perception” that Georgians are destined for crime, corruption and dependence on Russia.

“We are not [cowards],” he said and called on Georgians to see themselves as a nation associated with historical figures and movements including King David IV, Queen Tamar, Giorgi V, Erekle II, Ilia Chavchavadze, the national movement and the Rose Revolution.

The former president also pledged to address the legacy of the 1990s, saying security would be restored and that drugs and crime would disappear from neighbourhoods, streets and schools.

Saakashvili linked his political argument to the wars in Abkhazia in the 1990s and the 2008 Russia-Georgia war. He said the Abkhazia conflict was the culmination of state collapse, crime, internal divisions and international isolation in the 1990s, while arguing that the 2008 war was fundamentally different because Georgia had a functioning army and Russia openly deployed its armed forces.

He also claimed that Russia’s objective in 2008 was to destroy the Georgian state and halt the country’s reforms. Saakashvili cited a statement by then-Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying Moscow’s goal was the “complete destruction of Georgia”. 

Saakashvili further defended the record of his administration, saying Georgia achieved major economic and institutional reforms following the 2008 war and describing the country at the time as one of the world’s leading reformers.