Mikheil Saakashvili

Mikheil Saakashvili (born December 21, 1967, Tbilisi, Georgia, U.S.S.R.) is a Georgian politician who was instrumental in easing Pres. Eduard Shevardnadze from office and who served as president of Georgia (2004–07, 2008–13). He was later granted Ukrainian citizenship by Ukrainian Pres. Petro Poroshenko and was appointed governor of Odessa (2015–16) before quitting and being stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship.

Education and early political career

Saakashvili graduated from the law faculty of Kyiv (Ukraine) University’s Institute of International Relations and continued his education with graduate studies in France, Italy, and the Netherlands and at Columbia University in New York City. From 1993 to 1995 he worked for a New York law firm.

Saakashvili returned to Georgia in 1995 at the invitation of Zurab Zhvania, then chairman of the Union of Citizens of Georgia (SMK), and was elected to parliament in November 1995 on the SMK ticket. From 1995 to 1998 he served as chairman of parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs and lobbied unsuccessfully for faster and more comprehensive reforms. In August 1998 he was elected head of the SMK faction in parliament.

In October 2000 Saakashvili was appointed justice minister and set about reforming the legal system and improving prison conditions. Fueling the reputation for populism that he had acquired as a parliamentarian, he also solicited popular support for his crackdown on perceived high-level corruption. In August 2001 Saakashvili came into direct opposition with President Shevardnadze and resigned unexpectedly after a mysterious burglary at his home. He was reelected to parliament in a by-election in 2001, and in November he declared his open opposition to Shevardnadze and founded the United National Movement (UNM). Saakashvili was subsequently elected chairman of Tbilisi’s city council. In that post he raised pensions, donated school textbooks, and personally helped repair dilapidated residential buildings.

On November 3, 2003, the incumbent leadership announced that For a New Georgia, the pro-Shevardnadze bloc, was set to win the previous day’s parliamentary election. Saakashvili, together with Zhvania and parliament speaker Nino Burdjanadze, launched protests in Tbilisi and other cities against the perceived falsification of the vote and called for Shevardnadze’s resignation. On November 22 Saakashvili and a group of supporters occupied the parliament building unopposed. Shevardnadze fled the building, and he formally announced his resignation the following day.

First term as president

In the January 4, 2004, elections held to replace Shevardnadze, Saakashvili won 96 percent of the vote. He immediately sought solutions for Georgia’s manifold problems by appointing a new slate of government officials and attacking endemic corruption. Most important, however, he focused on keeping the country together in the face of secessionist movements in Georgia’s ethnic republics of Abkhazia, Ajaria, and South Ossetia—a course of action that often led him into conflict with Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin, who supported separatists in those regions.

Saakashvili was aided early in his tenure as president by his obvious popularity, his youth and vigour, and his international profile, but a series of civil rights abuses and an increasing sense of authoritarianism fueled a growing opposition movement. Irakli Okruashvili, a former defense minister in Saakashvili’s government, founded the Movement for United Georgia in 2007 and began making direct accusations against Saakashvili. Okruashvili was subsequently arrested (he was later released on bail and left the country), and opposition protests erupted in late 2007. On November 2, 2007, some 50,000 people gathered outside the parliament building in Tbilisi to call for Saakashvili’s resignation. Protests continued until November 7, when riot police were deployed to disperse the crowds and Saakashvili declared a 15-day nationwide state of emergency (though it was lifted the following week). After calling for early elections, he stepped down as president on November 25, 2007.

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Second term as president

Saakashvili subsequently won the presidential election held on January 5, 2008, but by a significantly smaller majority than he had in 2004. Though opposition groups contested the election as flawed, its results were supported by international monitors, and Saakashvili began his second term as president on January 20. Parliamentary elections were held in late May 2008, with Saakashvili’s UNM winning a majority of the seats.

Shortly after Saakashvili’s confirmation at the polls, the conflict with South Ossetia swelled sharply. Georgia engaged with local separatist fighters as well as with Russian forces that had crossed the border with the stated intent to defend Russian citizens and peacekeeping troops already in the region. Violence spread elsewhere in the country as Russian forces also moved through the breakaway region of Abkhazia in northwestern Georgia. Georgia and Russia soon signed a French-brokered cease-fire that called for the withdrawal of Russian forces, but tensions continued. Saakashvili faced mounting criticism as a result of the war: opposition groups, already restive over Saakashvili’s use of force in the November 2007 protests, disapproved of his handling of the conflict and criticized him for leading Georgia into a damaging and expensive war that it could not win.

Saakashvili faced continued challenges as political tensions persisted in 2009. Opponents called on Saakashvili to resign, and in April a series of daily demonstrations was launched; Saakashvili pledged increased reforms and called for early local elections to be held in May 2010, but he refused to step down. Although the daily protests of the spring dwindled midyear, new demonstrations were launched sporadically, and calls for Saakashvili’s resignation persisted as political tensions continued to simmer.

In 2012 Saakashvili’s UNM faced a challenge from the newly formed opposition coalition Georgian Dream, which was led by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a Georgian billionaire. Although polls showed the UNM with a strong lead several weeks before the October parliamentary election, the party’s position was damaged in late September when the release of videos showing Georgian prison guards beating and sexually abusing prisoners provoked widespread public anger. When preliminary election results indicated a resounding victory for the Georgian Dream (GD), Saakashvili, set to remain in office until the end of his second presidential term in 2013, conceded his party’s defeat and acknowledged Ivanishvili’s right to become prime minister.

Post-presidency

After the end of his presidency, Saakashvili taught for a short time as a lecturer at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Georgian officials filed criminal charges against him while he was there, so he did not return to Georgia afterward. In 2018 he was tried in absentia and sentenced in two separate trials.

Saakashvili went to Ukraine in 2015 upon invitation from Poroshenko: Ukraine was facing a push for broad reform and was in the midst of a protracted conflict with Russia, situations similar to those faced by Saakashvili during his presidency in Georgia. Saakashvili was granted Ukrainian citizenship, giving up his citizenship in Georgia, and was appointed governor of the Ukrainian region of Odessa.

The following year he accused Poroshenko of corruption, quit his post as governor, and launched an opposition party against Poroshenko. While Saakashvili was on a visit to the United States in June 2017, Poroshenko stripped him of his citizenship. Saakashvili reentered Ukraine through Poland but was arrested in February 2018 and deported to Poland. He moved to the Netherlands, where his wife had citizenship, and found a job as a lecturer. In 2019 he returned to Ukraine after his Ukrainian citizenship was restored by the country’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky. In May 2020 Zelensky appointed Saakashvili to head his Executive Committee of Reforms.

In the weeks before the 2020 parliamentary elections in Georgia, Saakashvili announced from Ukraine his intention to return to Georgia. Despite his lack of citizenship and the promise of imprisonment upon reentry, the UNM named him as its candidate for prime minister the following day. The UNM lost the election, however, and Saakashvili remained in Ukraine. He finally returned to Georgia the following year in an effort to galvanize voters before October municipal elections. He was arrested only hours after announcing his return.