Misha wants it again
Amid escalated confrontation with Russia and no perspective of things getting better there Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is apparently trying to guarantee himself and his ruling United National Movement (UNM) from surprises due to a possible Moscow involvement.
Saakashvili asked the parliament to cut his term by several months and hold parliamentary and presidential elections simultaneously early in 2008. By uniting two election campaigns Saakashvili, who’s widely expected to stay for the next term, hopes to help his party win a clear majority in the parliament while his popularity will be still high.
This is exactly what the opposition doesn’t like about the President’s unexpected proposal. All major opposition leaders voiced their protest against the move while one of them, Republican Party leader David Usupashvili, called it a step “towards “turkmenization” of Georgia”. While “turkmenization” is the least probable scenario here it seems that Georgian government is taking the threat from Russia very seriously.
First of all, Saakashvili wants to avoid the Ukrainian pre Orange Revolution situation where the direct involvement and support of Yanukovich by Russia transformed presidential elections into a crisis. Parliament Chairperson Nino Burjanadze hinted this telling the press that the president “reduced his term to avoid serious expenditures and finally bring the state in the working environment from the one of constant elections."
Second, Saakashvili wants to have free hands in the parliament in case relations with Russia get worse enough for a war in Abkhazia or South Ossetia to start, as Putin predicted in Finland.
Georgia is a presidential republic where both the president and the parliament are equally legitimized by national elections. To have (probably Moscow controlled) opposition dominate the parliament in times of crisis is asking for a trouble, similar to a power deadlock that leaded to an armed confrontation between Yeltsin and Duma in Russia in 1993. It's good, that Saakashvili uses legal means. But there is no guarantee that he'll continue to do so next time he'll need to strengthen his power.
Cross-posted to georgia_ge