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Furious Georgians turn on Shevardnadze

Locals walk past a line of police near the Georgian presidential office in Tbilisi on Wednesday. PHOTO: AP

Nineteen-year-old Abazar, part of the supposedly elite presidential security who lined the streets of Georgia's crumbling capital on Wednesday, earns US$40 a month. His blue uniform and beret badge may lend him an air of authority, but at heart he harbors the same grudge as the thousands of protesters who have been standing outside the parliament this week, demanding that the president quit.

The country has fallen apart, and President Eduard Shevardnadze is to blame, they say.

"Were it not for this uniform, I too would be protesting," Abazar mumbled. "He has to go."

The endemic corruption, frequent power cuts, vicious poverty, monthly wages of about US$30, anarchy in the regions and absence of any real leadership are not that rare in the struggling outer reaches of the former Soviet Union. Yet this state of incredible beauty and cultural talent is run by a former master of international and domestic politics.

Georgia's people expected more from Shevardnadze, a former Soviet foreign minister who has boasted of helping to end the Cold War and unite Germany.

"The people's disillusionment is almost complete."

Senior Western diplomat

But on Wednesday the former advocate of democracy was barricaded on the 11th floor of his offices. The roads around the building are blocked by buses and the security services. Inside his compound, burly men are preparing for a fight, donning camouflage smocks beneath police jackets; outside a unit of young men in riot body armour stands waiting.

These scenes do not reflect a man confident of popular support. The protests, which have often swelled to about 10,000 in size, started after the results of parliamentary elections were announced last week. The results, which claimed that the pro-government bloc For A New Georgia was ahead with about 20 percent of the vote, were denounced as seriously flawed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It reported numerous incidents of violence and ballot-stuffing.

The belief that the president had rigged the election, which many saw as the key to deciding his successor in 2005, sent Georgians to the streets.

"The people's disillusionment is almost complete," said a senior Western diplomat.

By law, the results have to be announced by next Thursday -- 18 days after the vote. But already the protests, which have blocked Tbilisi's main shopping street, have brought the country to a near standstill.

Rail freight traffic is down by 50 percent, the ports are at a standstill, investors are shaky, say officials. When troops were drafted into Tbilisi from policing the lawless Pankisi gorge, on the border with war-torn Chechnya, locals blocked their route with fallen trees.

The protesters are refusing to go home until the president quits, and the government has shunned a compromise, raising fears that only bloody conflict can follow.

Since the rallies began last Friday, the opposition has hardened its demands. One leader, Mikhail Saakashvili, is insisting that his party be declared the winner of the election. Another, Nino Burdzhanadze, wants Shevardnadze to resign and new elections to be called.

Kakha Imnadze, the president's spokesman, says personal ambition is behind each demand.

"If the president resigns, the speaker of parliament, [in this case Burdzhanadze] becomes acting president and elections follow 45 days later," he said.

The protesters see no ulterior motives.

"I want him gone," said Tamara, 21, a student who joined a march down the central Rustaveli Prospect on Wednesday.

"I pay US$500 a year to learn history, but have no prospects of a job. Shevardnadze has been president for 12 years and done nothing," she said.

Manana Inozaridze, a chemist, 44, was sick of a culture where you have to bribe someone to get a job.

The demonstrators are enduring rain, hunger and cold for what they insist is "peaceful protest." It will not last forever.

A senior presidential source said: "The government does not want to use force, but there have been calls for protesters to overrun the [president's offices], the state chancellery, and strangle people," he claimed.

"There is information that some protesters are armed and we have discovered a large arms depot. If you want democracy, you have to acknowledge the supremacy of the law," he said.

Wednesday night opposition leaders said they were ready for last-ditch talks, as some protesters kept up a hunger strike. But most analysts say a peaceful end is unlikely. Shevardnadze has often met opposition leaders, without success. One set of talks collapsed when Saakashvili "insulted" him, a government official said.

"He [Saakashvili] told him [Shevardnadze] he was like Ceaucescu [the late Romanian dictator] and would go the same way as him," the official said.

Wednesday night Saakashvili left a meeting with the former defense minister, an ally of Shevardnadze, saying the president was still not willing to compromise over the disputed election results.

The comparisons with Nicolae Ceaucescu epitomize how much the man who helped to end the cold war has changed. Rumors abound of his exorbitant wealth, despite the country's poverty. His spokesman admits that the elections had abnormalities, but says they were Georgia's best yet.
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