Georgia: Democracy Too Fast?
The Republic of Georgia has declared a state of emergency, reports International Herald Tribune, “after riot police officers used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to clear thousands of demonstrators from the streets.”
For 15 days, says the order, Georgians cannot assemble in the capital of Tbilisi. In other words, any demonstration in this former Soviet city will be illegal in the next two weeks.
The irony of the Georgian leadership’s new anti-democratic actions is the fact that the current president was democratically elected after a peaceful – or roseful? – revolution. Until today, he was also considered the most democratic leader in the Caucasus.
Obviously, an entire dissertation can be written about this sudden political transformation. But the main question that comes to my mind is whether democracy takes longer to establish than some people think and whether whatever escalates fast also ends fast.
In the context of Armenia’s recent political developments – where you have a former president campaigning for another presidential election – I wonder how and how fast things change in the Caucasus.
It seems there is a long way for people in the former Soviet Union to go before establishing sustainable democracies. And my regrets go to the people of Azerbaijan, in this case, where the government is becoming more and more authoritarian every single day – much worse than Georgia, or even Armenia, could perhaps ever get.
One Response to “Georgia: Democracy Too Fast?”
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R on 08 Nov 2007 at 5:13 pm #
The short answer is yes becoming a true democracy takes far longer than the 15 or so years most ex-Soviet republics have been independent. The process itself is important.