Georgia's modern history
Former Soviet republic Georgia declared its independence on April 9, 1991 for the second time in the 20th century. The 5.5 million Georgians live in a Caucasus area of 70,000 square kilometers. With the declaration of independence, the 1921 constitution was reinstated.
President Zviad Gamsakhurdia broke off relations with the Soviet Union and got hold of the key positions in the government: National and Foreign Affairs, Justice and Defence. But the opposing faction, led by commander Tengiz Kitovani and the national guard, occupied the television studio's in the capital T'bilisi. Civil war was dividing the country from December 1991. The Georgian region South Ossetia, with 125,000 merely islamic inhabitants, declared its own independence.
A coup d'état by a military junta chased Gamsakhurdia away on January 2, 1992. The democratically elected president fled to his birth place in the west and subsequently to Chechnya. He would shoot himself nearly two years later. Soviet minister of Foreign Affairs and ethnic Georgian Eduard Shevardnadze returned from Moscow and was installed as the State Council chairman by the co-leaders of the military junta, Tengiz Kitovani and Dzhaba Ioseliani. In October Shevardnadze was elected President (there was no other candidate), but the country kept on suffering a lot from internal conflicts in South Ossetia, Mingrelia and Abkhazia. The latter also declared itself independent, backed by Chechnya. Inflation rose to over 900%.
The next year Shevardnadze succeeded in sidelining Tengiz Kitovani and Dzhaba Ioseliani, getting special powers from the parliament to solve the nation's crisis. A United Nations sponsored peace treaty was signed that guaranteed Abkhazia's autonomy within Georgia. Georgia was admitted to the Commonwealth of Independent States, tightening the bonds with Russia and the other former Soviet republics. Shevardnadze needed Russian support to consolidate his own position in Georgia. Several opposition leaders were killed, members of the government were replaced. At the end of 1994, the inflation was at an unbelievable 20,000% in a country now without electricity, water and heating.
Although the political violence escalated and Shevardnadze himself was nearly assassinated as well, he was re-elected in the new Presidential Republic with a new currency supported by the IMF, the Lari. The economy would start to grow after his, with the inflation dropping to around 10% in the next few years. In these years, Shevardnadze was in danger of getting killed again as violence in Abkhazia continued, but international relationships with Europe increased. Democracy was still at a beginners' level. Elections haunted by allegations of intimidation and fraud resulted in another re-election of Shevardnadze in 1999/2000.
Our country has no future if we do not eradicate corruption.
Eduard Shevardnadze
Despite high-level corruption, economic frustration, and unfulfilled promises, most Georgians stayed loyal to Shevardnadze, the man who represented closer integration with the West. Corruption at all levels prevented the Georgian economy and governing bodies from flourishing after independence. Georgia's rate of tax collection is still one of the region's lowest, and implementing the federal budget has thus been a major challenge. Shevardnadze also called for the upgrading of military standards so that Georgia might knock on NATO's door within five years. Even though Shevardnadze repeatedly underlined the preservation of good-neighbour relations with Russia and the development of partnership relations with NATO as equally legitimate and logical goals for Georgia, Moscow found such an approach difficult to accept.
In January 2004, Mikhail Saakashvili was elected president by a landslide. A controversial parliamentary poll a few months before triggered massive protests, causing Shevardnadze to step down.