Thatcherism in Action

"It would be easy to buy into Mikhail Saakashvili's claims that Russian agents are responsible for the latest crisis in Georgia. The president's strong pro-US and pro-Nato stance intensely irritates Moscow and relations between the two countries are dire. Russia routinely exploits separatist and border tensions, and a key oil pipeline running from Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia undermines Kremlin efforts to monopolise energy supplies to the west from the Caspian basin. But leaders of Georgia's recently formed 10-party opposition coalition, and this week's street demonstrators, do not dispute the country's pro-western orientation, which most Georgians, ever wary of Russia, support. They say their focus is domestic: jobs, wealth inequalities, corruption, a weak judicial system, rights abuses, and what is seen as the excitable authoritarianism of Mr Saakashvili himself."

The opposition's slogan - "Georgia without a president" - refers to proposals to hold early elections and change the constitution, possibly by restoring the monarchy. But it also represents a personal rejection of Mr Saakashvili, whose political hero is Margaret Thatcher. (En enastående kvinna!!)

Four years after he helped lead the so-called rose revolution and initiated an era of breakneck social and economic change, many Georgians appear deeply discomfited by the resulting upheavals."

Shocktherapy Georgia