“A Georgian billionaire has taken Washington by storm,” writes POLITICO, an American news edition reporting that Ivanishvili has hired more than half a dozen lobbying and public relations firms over the past three months. His “lobbying push” has already exceeded what most countries, let alone individuals, spend trying to influence Washington. According to POLITICO, such big-name firms as Patton Boggs, National Strategies, Downey McGrath Group, Parry Romani Deconcini & Symms and BGR Group have signed on to lobby for Ivanishvili.

The U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act – passed by Congress in 1938 to limit the influence of Nazi propaganda in the United States – requires all companies lobbying for foreign clients to register with the Department of Justice and to disclose all their activities. An exemption is recognized for U.S. lobbyists registered under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) if the representation is not on behalf of a foreign government or foreign political party. It is noteworthy that every registered lobbyist for Ivanishvili claims to provide services to him as a businessman rather than as a politician or party leader. Consequently, their contracts with Ivanishvili are registered under the LDA, which imposes less stringent publicity requirements on lobbyists.

The only lobbyist for Ivanishvili that has registered under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) is the BGR Group. In its FARA registration statement filed in November 2011, the BGR Group identified its foreign client as its affiliate U.K. public relations firm which has been “engaged by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a Georgian citizen, for the purpose of promoting a stronger Georgian democracy through fair, open, and honest elections in 2012.” An earlier contract with Irakli Alasania’s Our Georgia-Free Democrats was registered under FARA by the BGR Group in July 2011.

##image#8481#1#The businessman himself does not deny that one of the main goals of his lobbying efforts is to undermine the image of the Georgian government. “For years, on our money, Saakashvili had strong lobbyists, and played with our money, and tried to lie and show a facade of democracy,” Ivanishvili told The New York Times. With the help of Washington lobbyists, he said he now plans to show the United States “the real picture” existing in Georgia.

By hiring high-powered Washington lobbyists, Ivanishvili has effectively declared war on “Saakashvili’s lobbyists,” among them another leading Washington firm, Podesta Group. In March, the Georgian government renewed its contract with Podesta Group, which will be paid USD 600,000 for services rendered until the end of the year. Along with Podesta Group, Georgia’s interests have been lobbied in the United States during the past few years by Orion Strategies and several other companies.

The Ambassador of Georgia to the United States, Temur Iakobashvili, told POLITICO that efforts of Tbilisi’s lobbyists are focused on “advancing our country’s national interests and on further strengthening the bilateral relationship with the United States, which is Georgia’s most important partner.” He noted that other political actors in Georgia are free to do the same and expressed the hope that those that do “aim to advance the common interests of the Georgian state and its people.”

The U.S. edition Foreign Policy notes that the “new and expansive lobbying effort by Ivanishvili and the Georgian Dream party in Washington” coincides with “a new and expansive congressional interest in Georgia’s democratic development.”

In late March, the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination of the new U.S. Ambassador to Georgia – Richard Norland. During his confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Norland emphasized the special importance of forthcoming elections in Georgia. The diplomat also took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the Georgian government about “reports of harassment of opposition candidates” and for problems Georgia has had in implementing its new law on party financing. Norland leveled that criticism in response to questioning by Senator Ben Cardin, who voiced concern about conditions affecting the opposition in Georgia. The statements of Ambassador Norland and Senator Cardin were welcomed by Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition.

Senator Cardin and Congressmen Jim McDermott, both Democrats with reputations as radical leftists, have spearheaded recent criticism of the Georgian government on Capitol Hill.

In early April, Congressman McDermott introduced a controversial bill – Republic of Georgia Democracy Act of 2012 – which declares that Georgian democracy faces serious challenges and that “political freedom and fair competition between political parties is under assault.” The McDermott bill accuses the Georgian government of persecuting Ivanishvili and calls for the United States to suspend financial assistance to Georgia if the October 2012 Georgian parliamentary elections are not conducted in a free and fair environment.

Until now, Congressman McDermott has not been known for having any special interest in issues concerning Georgia or, for that matter, in any foreign policy issues. His most notable foreign policy initiative – a trip to Iraq to meet Saddam Hussein in late 2002 – became a political scandal. As a federal investigation later established, McDermott’s visit just months before the U.S. invasion was financed by Hussein’s special intelligence agencies.

During her recent visit in the United States, Tina Khidasheli of the Georgian Republican Party extended special thanks to McDermott. She also met with Democratic Congressmen David Price and Steve Israel, Republican Senator Richard Lugar, and staff representatives of ##image#8480#1#Republican Congressman David Dreier.

In contrast to the Georgian government’s approach of cooperating equally with influential members of both U.S. political parties, the Georgian Dream pins its hopes mainly on the Democrats and, to some extent, on a few rather moderate Republicans as well.

The Georgian Dream team and its leader not only are intent on “exposing” the Georgian government, they also hope to persuade Washington that they share Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations.

At the end of January, The Washington Post published an Op-Ed by Ivanishvili, along with a full-page ad bought by Ivanishvili – both timed to coincide with the Georgian President’s meeting in the Oval Office with President Barack Obama. In his Op-Ed and paid advertisement, the leader of Georgian Dream accused the Georgian government of violating human rights, infringing on political pluralism within the country, and harassing the opposition.

At the same time, Ivanishvili asserts that he and his political partners are fully committed to pursuing the foreign political course declared by Georgia. However, Ivanishvili’s political activity has raised questions about the true foreign policy goals, as well as the fundamental values, of the new opposition leader and his coalition.

Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration has been declared as one of the goals of the coalition. Yet, Ivanishvili has invited for partnership certain political forces that have advocated the opposite. For example, National Forum leaders Kakha Shartava and Gubaz Sanikidze in 2007 stated that Georgia’s desire to join NATO is tantamount to treachery and that the country risks being divided into zones of influence if Georgia were to become a member of the Alliance. In April, the Georgian Dream coalition was expanded to include Gogi Topadze, the Industrialists Will Save Georgia leader who reaffirmed that he is still against Georgia’s integration into NATO.

##addon#751#0#In its article “Russian Oligarch Hires Army of D.C. Lobbyists,” the Weekly Standard focuses attention on the Russian origin of Ivanishvili’s wealth, as well as his cautious rhetoric toward the ruling regime in Moscow. The article also quotes xenophobic sentiments expressed by Ivanishvili’s political partners. “The Armenian Church is much stronger outside of Georgia and if it gets the same status inside the country, Armenians will overrun us,” Gubaz Sanikidze is quoted as saying. Manana Kobakhidze, a human rights defender who is now the leader of Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia, complains that the Georgian government tries “to please America by protecting minorities… when somebody is trying to build a democracy by destroying our Orthodox ethno-psychology and ethics, who wants such a democracy?” The Weekly Standard leaves no question where it stands on Georgian domestic politics. “If Ivanishvili and his lobbyists succeed, Georgia’s democracy and Georgia’s minorities may suffer yet another grievous setback,” the edition concludes.

Given the Georgian government’s success in cementing strong ties with the United States, Ivanishvili had no other choice but to launch active lobbying efforts in Washington, according to Vladimir Socor, political analyst at Jamestown Foundation. Socor sees the Ivanishvili campaign as simultaneously pursuing several goals: provoking criticism of the Georgian government and inspiring sympathy toward Ivanishvili during the electoral campaign; showing Georgian voters that he can influence American politics; and, finally, influencing official Washington to change its position toward the Georgian government. Socor is convinced that Ivanishvili’s uppermost goal is “to induce U.S. official equidistance, not only toward Georgian political forces, but also toward any strategic outcomes of Georgia’s elections.”

Washington insists that it is interested in a fair election process in Georgia, but Socor believes that focusing on the process alone “conveys the impression that the U.S. is indifferent to the elections’ strategic outcome.” The fact that Washington does not officially support any political force in Georgia does not mean it is indifferent to the goals and programs of contenders in the upcoming election, Socor contends. In his view, Washington must support a vision of Georgia’s future by “letting Georgian voters compare that vision with those of the parties.” The “unique influence” of the United States in Georgia’s internal politics, as Socor points out, “does carry with it a responsibility for the strategic outcomes.”

This article first appeared in Tabula Georgian Issue # 98, published 30 April 2012.

Leonid Tibilov began working for the KGB Soviet security service in the early 1980s. In 1992, he was appointed as head of the state security committee of the self-declared republic. Since then, he has served as de facto vice premier and co-chair of the joint control commission. He also has worked for private agencies and, lately, has served as a consultant to the Tskhinvali government on “post-conflict” issues. Before the most recent round of elections, Tibilov had not previously engaged in active politics.

Political turmoil in Tskhinvali began in November 2011 with nullification of the results of the initial so-called presidential elections. This time, the announcement of election results did not trigger any protest. Defeated David Sanakoyev congratulated Tibilov on his victory.

Back in November, the initial election was won by opposition presidential candidate Alla Dzhioyeva, a long-time rival of outgoing de facto president Eduard Kokoity. The Kokoity regime, however, blocked Dzhioyeva from coming to power by having the local “supreme court” annul the November election results. That move was also supported by official Moscow. Alla Dzhioyeva disregarded the court ruling. She declared herself the president and accused high-ranking Kremlin officials of exerting pressure on her. Her supporters staged mass protest rallies in Tskhinvali.

The “inauguration” of Dzhioyeva – which she herself had scheduled for February – was violently thwarted by law enforcement officers. Dzhioyeva was arrested and placed under guard in a hospital. She was not released from the hospital until the eve of the first round of voting in the election that was called anew.

Regarding the repeat election, Alla Dzhioyeva complained that the process was controlled by the Kremlin and that Moscow had carried out a “selective choice” of candidates. Along with Tibilov and Sanakoyev, the first round of the repeat elections on 25 March was contested by communist Stanislav Kochiev and so-called South Ossetia ambassador to Russia Dmitri Medoev. The latter, viewed as the Kremlin favorite, failed to garner enough votes to continue to the second round of voting.

None of the candidates in the repeat election represented the opposition in reality. Even though a large segment of the population was unhappy with the current regime, voters were left only with a choice among Kremlin-sanctioned candidates. During his election campaign, Leonid Tibilov was backed by such influential opponents of Eduard Kokoity as Jambolat Tedeev and Anatoli Barankevich, as well as by a number of Dzhioyeva supporters.

Tibilov declared after his election victory that he was ready to offer positions in the government to David Sanakoyev and Alla Dzhioyeva. For her part, Dzhioyeva said that she will shape her attitude toward the new “president” according to first steps taken by him. Both Dzhioyeva and Sanakoyev intend to set up their own political parties.

The view in Tskhinvali is that acceptance of Tibilov by opposition parties, as well as by disgruntled voters, will depend largely on Tibilov’s choice of people to man his new government. The victor himself has pledged to establish “a government of people’s trust.”

Opponents of the ruling regime fear that Eduard Kokoity may attempt to install his own cadres into the new government. As long as Kokoity remains as the appointed political leader of the ruling party, Yedinstvo, he can control the parliamentary majority. That raises the possibility that he may try to change South Ossetia into a “parliamentary republic” and thereafter make a comeback to the de facto government.

##image#8506#0#Tibilov promises to support the rule of law and reforms. One of his main promises is to investigate the misappropriation of Russian monies earmarked for the rehabilitation of Tskhinvali after the August 2008 war. Tibilov claims his government will reclaim any stolen amounts.

It seems unlikely that Tibilov will be able to deliver on that promise, especially given the degree to which high-ranking Russian officials control misappropriation schemes in the Tskhinvali region. The de facto prime minister of South Ossetia, for example, is traditionally appointed directly by Moscow. Moreover, the key criterion of loyalty of the “president” is not devotion to Russian politics (in this regard, none of the candidates posed any problem for Moscow), but rather adoption of existing “rules of the game.” Those existing rules clearly run counter to the local population’s main demands – restoration of order and eradication of corruption.

Tibilov’s ability to fulfill his promises is also doubtful in a setting in which the Kremlin has appointed a “supervisor” in the form of a special presidential representative for South Ossetia. That person is Head of the Republic of North Ossetia Teimuraz Mamsurov – a person lacking popularity among the population of the Tskhinvali region.

Similarly doubtful is whether the regime’s newly “elected” leader will succeed in putting forward any initiative for conflict settlement or negotiations with Tbilisi. In that area as well, Tibilov will be strictly controlled by “supervising bodies.”

This article first appeared in Tabula Georgian Issue # 96, published 16 April 2012.

This is not the first time that a measure restricting the public right to information about court proceedings has been put on the parliamentary agenda. Proponents justify such restrictions by invoking the presumption of innocence – media release of materials identifying a suspect supposedly violates the presumption of innocence and, moreover, infringes on the honor and dignity of suspects who are later cleared of all charges. That justification rests on false assumptions and may actually serve to impede the administration of justice and undermine a defendant’s right to a fair trial, as well as violate the rights of free speech and access to public information.

Georgian law guarantees the publicity of court proceedings. Proceedings are open to any interested person and can be closed only under exceptional circumstances specified in the law. In recent times, a dangerous trend toward court secrecy has been observed. For example, cases published on the webpage of the Constitutional Court of Georgia contain only initials of citizens instead of their full names. Such practice, ostensibly aimed at protecting privacy, violates the principle of publicity and restricts the legal right of citizens to public information. The rationale of protecting privacy also fails as a practical matter because, if anything, attendees of open court proceedings are well aware of the full names of citizens involved in court cases, as well as all other information disclosed on the court record.

Openness is an essential attribute of a fair trial. Media play a vital role in promoting transparency by keeping the public informed about what transpires in the courtroom. The question of whether or not to publish materials identifying an accused person rightly belongs in the sphere of media self-regulation. In democratic societies, it is up to the media to exercise editorial discretion in reaching that decision after weighing the degree of public interest and taking into account the circumstances and specifics of each case.

It is simply wrong to assume that release of such material a priori offends the honor and dignity of an accused person, even if that person is thereafter exonerated by the court. The release of identifying material oftentimes advances the fact-finding aspects of criminal justice, for example, by encouraging new witnesses with relevant information to come forward. Media need photos and video material to present that identifying material to the public and to report fully on cases of public interest. In addition to reporting substantiated facts, the media also advance the interests of justice by enabling the public to assess the credibility of suppositions and doubts expressed by those knowledgeable about the case – not only pertaining to the alleged guilt of a person, but also to the accused’s professed innocence.

Imposing restrictions on journalistic activity places too strong a lever in the hands of the government, which can have a chilling effect on the free expressional rights of media and society and also can endanger the rights of the accused. Those who advocate for such restrictions should bear in mind that media cannot violate the presumption of innocence – only the government can violate the presumption of innocence by abusing its prosecutorial and judicial powers.

It is common practice in the United States for media to videotape high-profile suspects when they are arrested, handcuffed and, flanked with police officers, brought to court for pre-trial proceedings. That practice – known as a “perp walk” – is often broadcast live with journalists shouting questions at the accused perpetrator (or “perp,” in American slang). Celebrities – actors, politicians, sports figures and financiers – frequently find themselves in the glare of television cameras when they are arrested on suspicion of criminal activity. The perp walk has its critics too. Critics believe that filming an accused person making that humiliating walk of shame creates a preconceived public opinion about the accused’s guilt, which thereafter makes it difficult for the accused to obtain a fair trial.

The inherent fairness (or lack of fairness) of the perp walk was the subject of especially heated debate last year when Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York City on charges of rape. The then-head of the International Monetary Fund also was paraded in front of ##addon#745#0#reporters for a televised perp walk. Seeing an unshaved Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs cast a very unpleasant picture of American media in the eyes of many of his French compatriots. Release of such material has been banned in France since 2000 and journalists there are penalized for not observing that ban.

It is not by happenstance that American media film perp walks; police and prosecutors routinely coordinate details of such routes with journalists. In so doing, law enforcement authorities not only promote transparency but also send a clear message that everyone is equal under the law – be it the head of an international monetary fund, a famous supermodel or an ordinary citizen. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s response to criticism about the very public arrest of Strauss-Kahn was concise: “If you don’t want to do the perp walk, don’t do the crime.”

Suspects are allowed to make statements to the media – during and after the perp walk. Defenders of the practice say that every time an accused person who walks that gauntlet is later proved innocent, the transparent coverage of the case makes society as a whole, along with law enforcers, look into the mirror and urge more caution against rushing to judgment in future cases.

In the United States and elsewhere, special websites have been created to accumulate information about past crimes committed by identified persons. Some sites require payment for public access to that information. There are many who criticize such sites for stigmatizing defendants who have already served their sentences and who presumably have been rehabilitated. On the other scale of balance, however, weighs even more important considerations – public interest, safety and security. Access to criminal records helps employers and others to estimate the risks in hiring someone for a job or engaging with them in other forms of personal contact. And one more thing – unrestricted access to people’s criminal histories may very well serve as a deterrent for potential criminals.

This article first appeared in Tabula Georgian Issue # 96, published 16 April 2012.

“Students must have an opportunity to earn through their labor, master new vocations, and then plan their future in a better fashion,” said Education Minister Dimitri Shashkin in explaining program goals during a meeting with participating students. The program could not admit all student applicants, the Minister acknowledged, but he promised that this initiative was just a first step and would be continued in following years too.

Even though the online registration of applicants was scheduled to take place 20-30 March, virtually all job openings were filled within a day, according to information posted on the program website. By 21 March, only 35 of the 25,000 summer jobs still remained open. The fact that the job vacancies were distributed before the online registration date had passed raised suspicion among a number of students.

Suspicion was also voiced by Transparency International Georgia senior analyst Levan Natroshvili, who told Tabula: “We have information that the online registration was complicated; that the lists had been compiled in students’ self-government youth organizations of the United National Movement party and local self-government bodies before the official date for the beginning of registration.” Natroshvili described that “alarming fact” as an indication that the program is “rather politicized.”

The government has carried out wide-scale employment programs in previous years as well. In particular, the state financed a three-month practical training course for unemployed workers in private companies in 2006. Yet another large program – a three-month retraining initiative – was launched by the state in late-2007.

As Levan Natroshvili points out, the new student employment program and similar initiatives carried out in the past have all coincided with pre-election periods. Natroshvili concedes that such a practice “is not a direct violation of law” and that such initiatives fall within the competence of the government; “[h]owever, the scale, content, symbols, etcetera, of those measures give rise to suspicions that these programs have political subtext and serve the aim of reaping political dividends for one party.” That, he contends, harms the election environment and creates an uneven playing ground for political parties.

Zurab Japaridze, director of the nongovernmental Institute of Strategy and Development, doubts that the one-month student employment program will have any positive long-term economic effect on the country. “Those young people may acquire some experience but, at the end of the day, that expenditure will, of course, be unproductive. Monies the state needs to finance that program are taken from effectively operating economic sectors,” Japaridze told Tabula.

The government’s August-October 2006 program of practical training in private companies involved 50,000 people and a state budget allotment of GEL 450 per participant. That three-month training program cost a total GEL 24 million and was assessed as positive by the government. Then-Minister of Health and Social Affairs Lado Chipashvili announced that 10,000 participants in that program obtained permanent jobs.

The much wider-scale retraining program launched in December 2007 involved more than 100,000 citizens. Each of those participants received GEL 600 during the three-month retraining period for a total state budget expenditure of GEL 60 million. No official calculations were presented for the program implemented in 2007-2008, but a survey subsequently conducted by the Association of Young Economists of Georgia showed that only ten percent of the 100,000 participants secured permanent employment.

According to a report published by Transparency International Georgia, the majority of companies that participated in the 2007-2008 employment program announced a disproportionately high number of job openings mainly at the request of state tax authorities. The report also alleged instances of secret deals whereby the “employer” retained part of the salary and the “employee” never turned up for work.

In the view of Zurab Japaridze, the efficiency of these types of employment initiatives and other similar programs, including computer and English-language learning programs, is highly questionable. “A general weakness of such state programs is that they are not a private initiative and, accordingly, no calculation is carried out on how advantageous or disadvantageous they may be,” he notes.

The state, as a rule, does not evaluate the efficiency of such programs even after their completion, according to Japaridze. “One can hardly believe that such programs brought about an economic effect,” he asserts. “Quite the contrary, money that is taken out from the economy, and which upon the decision of a few bureaucrats is spent on student employment or other similar programs, damages the economy.”

Official statistics prove that such employment programs have not produced any tangible results: in 2006, compared to the previous year, employment increased by a mere 3,000 people whereas employment decreased by 43,000 workers in 2007 and further decreased by 103,000 people in 2008.

Similar to previous employment initiatives, the new student “Summer Jobs” program is likely to produce short-term political and social effects. The only way to increase employment in the long-term is to attract investments and to encourage development of the private sector. State intervention merely results in increased budget expenditures and temporary satisfaction of a segment of the electorate.

This article first appeared in Tabula Georgian Issue # 95, published 9 April 2012.

- To start with the goal of your visit, you are here for a conference on security in South Caucasus. Can you tell us what are the main security concerns or challenges in South Caucasus?

DENIS MACSHANE: The main challenge remains the failure to create a post-Soviet region with harmony between states, harmony within the states, in terms of rule of law according to European norms. The continuing shadow of Russia, which has a zero-sum approach to diplomacy in the region, seeks to divide and rule. And that’s the instability of the region – because the Kremlin takes the view that an unstable South Caucasus somehow worries and concerns the West, and Russia wants to keep the West, Europe and Northern America under pressure.

VLADIMIR SOCOR: Well, this conference has a broad spectrum of issues under discussion, not narrowly focused on security or security threats. It focused on many challenges, from state-building and state developing in this region.

There was a panel on development of democratic institutions where my Georgian friend [MP] Davit Darchiachvili made a very good case about the need for law enforcement agencies, such as police and prosecutors’ office, to be strongly centralized. He remembered how, before 2003, prosecutors and judges made decisions – or the decisions were made for them by various business or interest groups who were privatizing the institutions of Procuracy and Justice. He also remembered decentralized police as ineffective. And where there is a threat of corruption, and to eradicate corruption, the police [force] has to be strongly centralized. Of course, I completely agree with this…. The classical liberal state is narrow, but strong. So that is one issue that came up.

In a few minutes, there will be a panel on energy security. I, myself, had another intervention in which I expressed my concerns about the need to avoid state capture by powerful wealthy individuals. And I expressed my confidence that Georgian state-building has made such advances that it could resist one individual, no matter how rich he may be, from capturing the state by using money.

- Vladimir Putin was again elected as President of Russia. Could this pose new security threats to South Caucasus?

DENIS MACSHANE: Putin’s Caucasian policy has been a total disaster. He has not produced peace in Chechnya. He has created tiny breakaway regions in Georgia after the invasion and illegal occupation of Georgia in 2008, which was condemned by the rest of the world. He is supporting a bloodthirsty despot in Syria. He has been unable to leverage Russian power, for example in negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia. This is quite a long list of foreign policy failures for Mr. Putin and his foreign policy team. I think he now needs to press his own “reset” button and create a new proactive, positive-partnership foreign policy in the South Caucasus region.

VLADIMIR SOCOR: I think Putin’s return to the post of president will not bring any changes to Russian policy. For one thing, Putin was in power when Medvedev was the president and Putin was the prime minister. Clearly, Medvedev’s decisions were strongly influenced by Putin; clearly there is continuity in that regard.

There has been continuity in objectives and execution in policies at least since 2001. The policy is built around rebuilding Russia’s sphere of interests – not exactly like the former Soviet Union, but a modified, updated version of Russian sphere of interests in which Russia would control the natural resources [of Eurasian countries] and their transportation, would build an economic bloc around Russia, concentrating the resources of non-Russian countries under Russia’s control and creating economic bases of global power.

Many people in the West say that Russia is not like the Soviet Union [because] it does not have global ambitions, it has only regional ambitions. As if this were a source of comfort – it only has regional ambitions. But people who think in these terms forget that a Eurasian power like Russia which concentrates resources of Eurasia under its control would generate the basis for global power. It could use regional power to project global power, which would inevitably challenge the U.S. So this is the main source of danger from Russia. Putin’s return to the presidency does not change anything because this has been a continuous Russian policy since 2001, and the invasion of Georgia in 2008 has to be seen exactly in this context.

- The Georgian President has expressed a desire to normalize relations between Georgia and Russia and has announced visa-free travel for Russian citizens in Georgia. Russia has refused to normalize relations. What can be done for normalization of relations?

DENIS MACSHANE: I think President Saakashvili is taking exactly the right decisions. It would be incorrect to say, because of the invasion and occupation of 2008, that he will never ever talk to Russia again in the next fifty years. Unfortunately, even when foreign troops are on your soil, you have to search for diplomatic solutions. [President Saakashvili] had a very generous offer about a visa-free regime for Russians. After all, this is the nicest place to come for holidays, whether it’s skiing or sun or food or good wine. And it’s rather ##addon#742#0#childish for the Kremlin to deny to Russian citizens their enjoyment of Georgian hospitality. Saakashvili is adopting the absolutely correct policy of offering a hand of friendship to Russia. But I am afraid that the Kremlin has [such a] very zero-sum approach to so many diplomatic relations that when someone gives them a kiss or offers to give them a kiss, they think it’s a spit in the face.

VLADIMIR SOCOR: It would be good for Georgia to continue doing what Mr. Saakashvili started doing, namely to demonstrate to everyone that Georgia wants to have functional relations. I would not call such relations “normalized” because, as long as Russia continues to occupy the territories of Georgia, there can be no talks of normalizing or normal relations. But I would say “building functional relations” with Georgia. One aspect of functional relations would be the visa-free travel; another one would be the resumption of bilateral trade. All these are the various functions of bilateral relations. So we can talk about achieving functional relations with Russia. And it is useful for Georgia, as Mr. Saakashvili has done, [to show] that Georgia wishes such relations, that Georgia takes initiatives, that Georgia is ready to propose functional relations with Russia while at the same time insisting on de-occupation of the territories.

- To talk about the importance of stability in the region – What do you think should be the EU role in conflict resolution in the South Caucasus?

DENIS MACSHANE: The European Union is not concentrated enough on the Black Sea region and the Caucasus, in general. EU’s foreign policy is divided, so it does not speak with one voice in relationship to Russia. It is even incapable on having unified policy recognition of Kosovo. And here I think it is very important for countries in South Caucasus to recognize Kosovo because it is actually Russia’s policy not to support recognition of Kosovo. And refusing to recognize Kosovo plays right into the hands of the Kremlin.

But the EU does not really have enough energy and resources right now because it has to deal with the economic problems inside; [it has] to support the measures and policy for improving stability in the region. But, at this conference, there are a lot of significant senior European politicians, and also at another conference in Warsaw [organized by the Polish Institute of International Affairs, Centre for Eastern Studies], and this shows that people recognize the political importance of trying to find some way out of very many mutually reinforcing dead ends.

VLADIMIR SOCOR: There are two different aspects here: One is Georgia’s policy of achieving integration in EU, and the second is EU interest in the entire South Caucasus region.

##addon#743#0#The EU has finally come to realize that this region is crucially important for the energy security of EU. It has taken EU many years to arrive at this conclusion – so “better late than never,” as they say. They have arrived at this conclusion, and they are working on it. I would like to praise the European Commission, the Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger and the Commission President [Jose Manuel] Barroso, who is strongly supporting Oettinger in developing the energy corridor in South Caucasus. So this is the key interest of EU. As regards Georgia’s policy of EU integration, Georgia is clearly a front runner, far ahead of Azerbaijan and Armenia. Armenia has made its choice – its choice is to be an ally of Russia. With Azerbaijan, things are different; Azerbaijan is clearly Western-oriented; Azerbaijan bases its whole future on being an independent state with close ties with the European Union. But EU does not fully understand the political situation in Azerbaijan, does not understand the political model that was chosen by Azerbaijan for national development. So Azerbaijan is lagging behind Georgia in this aspect, as in many other aspects. For example, Azerbaijan is not successful in combating corruption – far from it. So, for this combination of reasons, Azerbaijan is behind Georgia. But I have always said that Georgia and Azerbaijan are inseparable because they form two halves of the same transit corridor. If one of these countries fails, the other one will fail automatically because they are indivisible links in this corridor. So I would like to see EU treating Azerbaijan with more understanding than it does and feeling that it needs Azerbaijan. It needs Azerbaijan as it needs Georgia for the reasons of energy security in the first place, but also because Azerbaijan is a great example of secular development of a Muslim nation. So these are the interests of EU in the region.

- What is the main democracy challenge in the region?

DENIS MACSHANE: There are three key elements: First, how to alternate power. Americans were geniuses at the end of the Eighteenth Century when they decided that their president should be president only for four years or a maximum eight years. When George Washington, who could have stayed as president of America for twenty years, said, “That’s it. I don’t know who will come after me, but our democracy will be stronger by me stepping down.” That principle of proper democratic alternating, I don’t think is sufficiently anchored in the region.

The second [element] is the rule of law – judges, prosecutors must be utterly independent from political pressure. No minister, no policy chief, no one should be able to call a judge up [and say] “that man should be arrested because he did not service my car” or “he did not give a scholarship or a job to my daughter.”

##addon#744#0#The third one is freedom of expression; that also means responsible journalism. There is too much journalism that is sensationalistic, partisan, dishonest. People think if you write on the Internet or tweet, you can say any amount of lies. Journalism also requires its own ethics rules. But still there is a lot of evidence of unbalanced journalism or journalists who seek to report fairly [but who] are being prosecuted and arrested and harassed. You cannot claim to be a Euro-Atlantic country if a journalist is in prison because of what he or she writes.

- To move to more global issues, Iran is becoming more of a threat. Do you think this could pose risk to the region?

DENIS MACSHANE: If Iran goes on with its ambition of getting a bomb, clearly that utterly destabilizes the region. [Iran President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad has said, again and again, that he wants to eliminate Israel. Three or four days ago, he told German channel ZDF that the Holocaust is an Israeli lie. Now a man who says the Holocaust is a Jewish lie and calls for elimination of Jews is not a man that anyone wants to have his hands on a nuclear weapon. So this is profoundly serious. Iran claims that it wants [nuclear capacity for] peaceful use, yet it won’t open what it does to international inspection. Iran looks at Turkey with jealousy as a regional power trying to restore the idea of Persian greatness. And as long as Iran insists that it can have nuclear weapons, and there is a possibility of a military operation, the price of oil [will continue] rising, destabilizing Western economies. And we do not want Western democracies spending one-hundred-twenty dollars on a barrel of oil. We want Western economies investing in Georgia, in Armenia and other parts of this region, bringing middle-class prosperity to more and more people.

This article first appeared in Tabula Georgian Issue # 94, published 2 April 2012.

In a September 2011 Washington Post article, American author Ralph Peters remarks that “Putin’s genius… begins with an insight into governance that eluded the ‘great’ dictators of the last century: you need control only public life, not personal lives. Putin grasped that human beings need to let off steam about the world’s ills, and that letting them do so around the kitchen table, over a bottle of vodka, does no harm to the state. His tacit compact with the Russian people is that they may do or say what they like behind closed doors, as long as they don’t take it into the streets.”

At the time, it appeared that the siloviki understood that the Runet – as the Russian segment of the Internet is called – is closer to being a virtual street than a virtual kitchen table. People can let off steam on social media and blog sites, but they can also persuade, multiply and organize.

“Uncontrolled usage [of the Runet],” FSB Cyber Center Chief Alexander Andreyechkin warned last spring, “may lead to a massive threat to Russia’s security.”

The Kremlin had one eye on social media-driven events abroad. “Look at the situation that has unfolded in the Middle East and the Arab world,” said President Dmitry Medvedev. “This is the kind of scenario that they were preparing for us, and now they will be trying even harder to bring it about.”

But the Kremlin’s other eye was focused on upcoming Duma and presidential elections. In what could only have been a trial run before the elections, during March and April 2011, the now-familiar crew of youth group and criminal hackers launched a series of DDoS attacks on the LiveJournal blog site, Novaya Gazeta website and Rospil.info, a website run by anti-corruption blogger Aleksey Navalny.

(DDoS attacks come from hundreds, maybe thousands of computers herded without their owners’ knowledge into a botnet. Upon command of the so-called botherder, each computer in the botnet blasts requests at the target website until it is overwhelmed and unable to perform its intended function.)

“Hardly anyone could have done this other than the security services,” said People’s Freedom Party leader Boris Nemtsov. The spring 2011 attacks were warnings to Russian Internet denizens that the Runet is carefully observed.

On the occasion of the December 4 Duma elections, as expected, DDoS attacks were aimed at about 30 websites more or less identified with the opposition. Among the attacked sites were LiveJournal, news portals slon.ru, Zaks.ru, Novaya Gazeta, New Times and Kommersant newspapers, Bolshoi Gorod magazine, Echo Moskvy radio and TV channel Dozhd. Election watchdog Golos also came under cyber fire, particularly its Kartanarusheniy.ru, a project to display election violations on an interactive map.

However, the gravity of the matter expressed by the siloviki a few months earlier was not reflected in the December efforts to suppress online opposition. Some sites were taken down, but one could read about it on other sites. And while browsing the available sites, one might have found an amateur video of ballot box stuffing at some or other polling station. One got the impression that the siloviki and their hacker friends did not comprehend the extent of the Runet challenge.

Having successfully employed social media to reveal election irregularities, the wired opposition then used the same means to bring hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of cities across Russia.

Putin appeared dazed. Ten days after the election, during his annual television call-in program, he ridiculed the white ribbons worn by street protestors. “Frankly,” he said, “when I looked at the television screen and saw something hanging from someone’s chest, honestly, it’s indecent, but I decided that it was propaganda to fight Aids – that they had hung, pardon, a condom.”

Meanwhile, looking forward to the March 4 presidential election, the Putin camp decided to join the Internet era with a slick “Vladimir Putin 2012” website. The home page featured a vigorous-looking sports shirt-clad Putin against a snowy backdrop. The content ##addon#735#0#included an essay about why he should be Russia’s president.

However, the Putin people apparently mistook a computer screen for a television screen. Television broadcasts one way; on the Internet, people talk back. The only thing they could think to do with the torrent of negative comments was to delete them.

Nonetheless, the vast majority of the Russian people still gets most of its information from television, and Putin handily won the March 4 election, (from which any serious opposition had been carefully excised months earlier.

In March, DDoS attacks – at least on an appreciable scale – did not materialize. Perhaps, buoyed by favorable pre-election polls, the Putin people decided that good, old-fashioned ballot box stuffing would suffice. Perhaps embarrassed by the December 4 DDoS debacle, they decided to reconsider and revamp their cyber capabilities. Whatever the reason, it is interesting that the perpetrators – who some continue to believe are spontaneous cyber patriots – could be called off so efficiently with the snap of someone’s fingers.

They will be back. But, for now, the wired opposition persists – #нтвлжет is just their latest iteration. And the system persists with broadcast politics like the Anatomy of a Protest documentary. However, there is a new factor. Like Putin’s website, NTV’s program became interactive – not directly, of course, but online comments about the television program and online protest organization rendered NTV, for a brief period, interactive.

With half of Russians already connected to the Internet, and 10,000 people joining each day, politics is moving online. That alone will make Vladimir Vladimirovich’s third presidency very different from his first two.

This article first appeared in Tabula Georgian Issue # 95, published 9 April 2012.

- How would you evaluate the situation with human rights in Georgia? This time, the report is more voluminous. What does that speak to?

I do not want to tie the length of the report with the deterioration of any aspect of human rights. In 2011, we studied a number of new topics in terms of human rights protection. We dedicated almost half of the report to an analysis of the situation in the penitentiary system. That means that we studied that system thoroughly. We prioritized in 2011 certain components of some topics which were not studied in much detail in 2010 – for example, the right to health care, in general, and compulsory health care. A large part of the document was allocated to eco-migrants, a category missing in the 2010 report, as well as children’s rights.

Ombudsmen of many countries strive to publish, especially in recent times, as small a report as possible due to technological developments. Perhaps the time will also come in Georgia when Public Defender’s reports will be published in the form of abstracts. The demand of the Georgian society today is that a detailed analysis be presented on each and every issue.

- Do relevant agencies react to your report? How much do they take into account your recommendations?

In some areas the headway is obvious; in others, the situation remains the same or has even deteriorated. Several important steps were taken in 2011, for example, the Juvenile Diversion and Mediation Program. Positive changes were observed in minority rights protection, including in terms of improvement of the Civil Code enabling religious minorities to register as legal entities of public law. One should also single out the recent ruling of the Constitutional Court which allows individuals, in case of conscientious objection, to undertake an alternative service instead of reserve military service. Some novelties have been also seen in the penitentiary system, but still many problems remain unresolved and any tangible progress is difficult to observe in this system.

Some positive steps have been taken in the protection of children’s rights. Important laws entered into force to protect women and children from violence; however, problems were discovered in their implementation.

The picture in terms of courts remained unchanged. The year 2011 was the first year ever when Public Defender’s representatives directly monitored court processes. It is a pity that even newly renovated court buildings do not comply with standards facilitating access for handicapped people. The surveyed cases reveal that various courts still often violate standards of human rights.

We allocated quite some space in our report to internally displaced people. There are myriad problems of a social-economic nature, as well as in terms of their living conditions.

A positive development is that, in 2011, the attention on the part of the government toward the Public Defender’s report heightened and the degree of implementation of our recommendations improved too. A number of state agencies satisfied several very important recommendations of the Public defender.

- Which recommendations are you talking about, in particular?

Say, regarding the penitentiary system, our recommendations were taken into account in drawing up a health care strategy. Concrete recommendations were fulfilled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs – they dismissed a number of employees whom we criticized in our previous [2010 human rights] report for violations. Our advice was used as a ground for changes in the areas of child care, the fight against violence, reform of the judiciary. That, of course, has not put all the problems to right, but accommodating Public Defender’s recommendations contributes to the eradication of systemic problems.

- Almost half of the 2011 report is dedicated to human rights issues in the penitentiary system: The number of prisoners who die in prison is still high; access to health care remains a problem; cases of improper treatment are also discussed. You always pay much attention to such problems. What changes can be observed in this direction? How much are your recommendations considered?

Tackling the problem of maltreatment in the penitentiary system requires a corresponding will and desire. That is not a problem the solving of which requires expenditure and budget. It can be solved by strict control of employees and through eradication of the syndrome of impunity, which, first of all, must come from the head [of the penitentiary system]. Georgia has made an apparent breakthrough in the police system in terms of eradication of torture, and that was achieved as a result of proper reaction. Without that, no success can be realized in the penitentiary system as well.

- How much do they communicate with you?

Communication has improved in recent years, but that cannot solve all the problems. We may discuss problems but with no result. Improper treatment cannot be justified, either for heightening discipline or any other reason. We talk much about renovated infrastructure, improved catering, visiting rooms, newly opened facilities, positive approaches to juvenile delinquency, but improper treatment remains the problem which must be solved once and for all.

There is a systemic problem in terms of provision of health care. Tuberculosis is an especially grave problem. Efforts are being made to combat this disease, but much time has been lost and it will be difficult to achieve success within a year or two. In 2011, the number of prisoners who died of tuberculosis decreased by ten – but that is way far from that picture which the penitentiary system must achieve. Viral forms of hepatitis are also a serious problem. The number of patients who have died of that disease has increased. The actual number of prisoners suffering from that illness is much higher than shown in official data. An action plan for combating hepatitis has not been drawn up yet.

The number of patients dying in the system is still high. The report cites a number of facts establishing that patients who died had been gravely ill, which, as a rule, should have qualified those prisoners for deferment of their sentences. Yet, despite their acute conditions, they continued serving their sentences inside prisons.

- The 2011 report contains the names of representatives of the prison administration who were accused by prisoners of ill-treatment, cursing, manhandling, illegally punishing them and ordering them around. A similar problem was also discussed in the previous report. Then, as well, you named concrete people and criticized the Prosecutor’s Office for protracting investigation into such cases. Is there any improvement observed in that direction?

Law enforcement agencies of Georgia work very efficiently in certain directions. For example, investigation into a criminal case is conducted within a short time-span, and the fight against crime has brought concrete results. When it comes to violations of human rights by representatives of law enforcement agencies, we encounter a very negative attitude from investigative bodies. To some extent, impunity is encouraged – such persons are rarely held to account.

In 2011, forensic examination of several incidents of maltreatment was timely conducted, which had not been the case in 2010. On the other hand, however, there are frequent cases when investigative bodies do not investigate the facts in due time. For example, after the break-up of the protest rally on 26 May 2011, several police officers were punished according to the administrative rule, which I welcomed as a step forward. However, that [administrative punishment] was not an adequate measure because, in my view, signs of a criminal crime [against the police officers] were apparent. I hope that my recommendations to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office will be adequately considered and duly addressed.

- The report emphasizes the right to fair justice. You single out criminal justice as the most problematic sphere. What is the main problem there?

##image#8319#1#The picture is much better in terms of civil cases. Administrative proceedings also show improvement – except when it comes to sentencing for administrative imprisonment. Problems we observed in criminal justice were the following: frequent instances when the court did not take into account the retroactive effect of law and did not apply mitigating circumstances to a criminal case; instances of violating the right to a defense when the court granted prosecutors’ motions which did not comply with the law. We also saw concrete facts when the court infringed on the rights of a person and violated the principle of equality of parties by not substantiating its interim and final rulings.

- You also discuss infringement on private property in your report, quoting several concrete cases….

Private property is one of the priorities of the report. We think that, in cases quoted in the report, the right to private property was infringed by investigative and judicial bodies, as well as by local municipalities. When legislation does not restrict that possibility of infringement of property rights by investigative bodies, it results in human rights violations – for example, when an investigative body seizes an object for a long period of time and a citizen no longer has use of it. That is, though indirect, a breach of property rights. This problem is not of a systemic nature any longer such as it used to be in 2006-2008, but separate facts can still be seen and if not responded to, such facts will happen more frequently.

- Several months ago, in your earlier interview with Tabula, you said that you did not encounter such problems in accessing prisons as you did in accessing children’s homes. You also talked then about the importance of deinstitutionalization and related problems. How is this process proceeding?

By the end of April, a report on that issue will be also published. We have succeeded in removing obstacles in monitoring that process. Attention should be paid to those children’s homes which do not fall under any state control – I mean several children’s homes operating under the care of the Georgian Patriarchate. The law does not directly allow the Public Defender to monitor such institutions. We spoke to children who earlier had lived in those homes. They talked about serious violations and, therefore, we will study the memorandum signed between the Health Care Ministry and Patriarchate.

Facts of maltreatment were revealed in private family-type homes as well. Many of our recommendations were fulfilled in that regard, but many problems were discovered in the process of reintegration. Children were returned to such homes which could not ensure decent conditions for their development. Children’s rights to health care, education, wholesome diet are often violated. I would like to urge the newly appointed Minister of Health Care to pay attention to reforms that are designed to create a foundation for a decent child-care system.

Despite numerous shortcomings, the process of deinstitutionalization must go on. No child in Georgia should remain in Soviet-type children’s homes in which it is difficult to create for them the family environment necessary for the children’s development.

- According to the report, wrongdoing caused by religious intolerance has sharply decreased. What was the reason for that?

The reason is fulfillment of the Public Defender’s recommendations. Punishment of several people for crimes committed on the grounds of religious intolerance eventually led to the situation where such wrongdoing has been sharply decreasing since 2010. Up to forty cases are still uninvestigated. Nevertheless, a decline has been observed since 2010. In 2011, there were only several facts of which I took note. That indicates that the situation has improved in this regard.

- This report, like the previous one, does not contain information about sexual minorities. Why so?

The Public Defender reacts to concrete facts of wrongdoing. In 2010-2011, representatives of sexual minorities did not approach the Public Defender’s Office. We all agree that the environment in which these people live is very hostile to them. Media often publish homophobic articles and the Public Defender never leaves them unnoticed. If members of sexual minorities provide more information about concrete cases of violation, we will be able to discuss that issue in a report.

- The Criminal Code of Georgia will be amended to qualify racial, language, national or ethnic intolerance as an aggravating circumstance for any crime envisaged in the Criminal Code. How necessary is such an amendment?

I think such an amendment is even belated. The European Commission provided such a recommendation to Georgia several years ago. As far as I am aware, that list of aggravating circumstances includes intolerance toward sexual orientation as well. The Office of the Public Defender has contributed much to ensure that that draft amendment is in the form presented.

- On 14 March, several students of the Tbilisi State University accused student government representatives of manhandling and bullying them. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, taking into account their age, limited itself to issuing a “warning” to participants in the incident. Did students who were harmed approach you? Have you been approached before with such complaints?

No, they did not approach us, but we started inquiring into that case at our initiative. They – let’s put it this way – kept the information we needed “confidential.” We tried to contact them, but that did not bring about any tangible result. I find it difficult to evaluate how adequate the law enforcement agency’s behavior was, but would say that age is irrelevant here. If a crime was committed, police should have taken appropriate measures. I need much more information to evaluate what sort of conflict took place.

This article first appeared in Tabula Georgian Issue # 95, published 9 April 2012.

When Bidzina Ivanishvili first emerged on the Georgian political scene several months ago, positive reaction was of two types:

The first reaction was simple and clear: “Here comes a superhero who will slay the dragon and build a new and happily-ever-after country.” I would not dream of awakening such people who live in a fairy-tale world. Unfortunately, they will have to learn for themselves that there will be no happy ending to their fantasy.

More problematic for me was the reaction of a second group of people, including quite a number of educated intellectuals. This group welcomed the new political development with more sophisticated argumentation. It did not matter much to them what kind of politician Ivanishvili was (meaning “We understand that he has a lot of weaknesses”). What really mattered to them was that the government would now have a counterbalance to stop it from thinking that everything is permissible for the government. Like manna dropped from heaven, Ivanishvili nourished hope for a more balanced political system. “I am not an Ivanishvili supporter,” members of this group readily acknowledged, but declared: “Since his appearance, we live in a completely different Georgia – in a Georgia where a counterbalance to the government exists. Anyone who sides with democracy must welcome this development.”

Theoretically, that second position is absolutely correct. If our government lacks anything, it is, first and foremost, a strong (domestic) opponent which the government would have no other choice but to take into account. If our democracy lacks anything, it is, first and foremost, serious competition among serious political forces. If we long for that – and, actually, we must – does that also necessarily mean that we should fall captive to a “Dream” state? Balanced political systems are not built by practicing voodoo or pseudo-psychology.

Today, it is crystal-clear that the Dream has been dispelled. Any hope that the emergence of Bidzina Ivanishvili would change the balance of power between the government and opposition (in favor of the latter, of course) has been proved imaginary. We have seen instead the ratings of the government rise. Ivanishvili has managed to create only a temporary illusion of strengthening the opposition. One might even assume that, in the long term, that may actually harm prospects of establishing a balanced political system in Georgia.

The key lesson to be learned here is that illusions can be blinding whereas opening one’s eyes to reality is illuminating. That may seem simplistic, but the current state of affairs is not all that simple. Western leftist ideology of the 1960s, which became a component of global culture, taught us to be brave enough to dream the impossible dream; it taught us that those who would force us to stop dreaming and face reality were bad and reactionary.

On the other hand, what was the Soviet Union then if not the reinforced concrete construction of dreamer-intellectuals whose ideological scrap metal is still being exported to neighboring countries? Communist ideology itself has been deconstructed and discredited, but the cult of quixotic romanticism which constituted its base is not that easily torn asunder. We do not want communism any more, but some of us cannot help but dream an impossible dream about building such a democracy in two years’ time that it would amaze Europe.

I have no clue how the Georgian Dream odyssey will eventually end, but an open and blunt letter it has sent to the Ambassador of the United States in Georgia deserves to be preserved as a monument to that political reasoning. The epistle, in effect, says:

Uncle Sam, we do appreciate that you protect us from the bloodthirsty regime of Saakashvili and that your Ambassador, time and again, raises his voice in our defense and, overall, we pin our hopes on you again. But we are unhappy when you tell us the truth and, please understand us, we beg you to leave us at least until after the elections and let us deceive ourselves and dupe other people too!

Public opinion polls – rarely conducted in Georgia and largely seen as an exotic beast here – scare many out of their wits. That is a problem the depth of which we do not fully understand. The near-absence of such surveys enables Georgian politicians to repeat, after practically each sentence, “that is a demand of the people” or “that is a concern of the people” and, moreover, enables them to assume that we will not even bother ourselves to check whether, in reality, our compatriots really have such demands or concerns.

A sociological survey is an imperfect instrument and the interpretation of its results requires caution and common sense. But it nonetheless provides a mirror on society and has become as vital a part of modern culture as a TV set or a mobile phone. Sociological surveys demystify and dispel that amorphous notion of “the people.” That is vitally important because “the people” in a democracy have often been unleashed as the most dangerous of beasts; an untold number of atrocities were committed in the Twentieth Century in the very name of “the people.”

There is no shortage anywhere of demagogues who continue to manipulate “the people.” Ordinary Americans can never be so easily duped because they can observe – almost daily – how opinions of their compatriots change on any issue; by how many percentage points the popularity of a political leader rises or falls after every step and each statement; how many people are truly concerned about this or that problem, and how many of them just don’t give a damn.

Protesting against sociological surveys is tantamount to fighting to retain an illusory notion and, at the end of the day, authoritarian politics. It is a pity, but the reality is that – in that fight – we again pin hopes on America!

This article first appeared in Tabula Georgian Issue #95, published 9 April 2012.

1. An agreement signed in Ashkhabad on December 24, 1993 on  International Legal Guarantees of Independent and Unimpeded Operation of  TV and Radio Company MIR to be ceased. 

2. The Georgian Foreign Ministry to inform depositary on Georgia’s withdrawal from the agreement mentioned in the first part of the decree.

TV and Radio Company MIR was launched in the beginning of the 1990s upon the agreement of the CIS member states and aimed at covering political, economic and humanitarian cooperation activities between the member states.  

- It has been less than a month since you have taken over the management of the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs. For many, your appointment to that position came as a surprise. Do you have detailed information about those spheres in Georgia and about problems existing there?

During the past month, I have met with many people, with representatives of the health care, social and health insurance sectors. That period of time is long enough to become well aware of specifics of our health care and social assistance system and sufficient to see existing problems too. These are difficult spheres, but I am optimistic because a good foundation has been laid. The state has succeeded in transferring insurance principles into the health care system and, based on that, has started renovating infrastructure. We cover virtually the whole of Georgia with brand new or rehabilitated hospitals and thus ensure geographic accessibility of medical care for citizens. A key challenge which remains is the financial affordability of that service.

- How are you going to ensure better affordability?

It is important that a so-called “household evaluation” scoring system has been established. A family submits an application to the state, saying that it considers itself a low-income or a no-income family and needs state assistance. Then, a social agent visits that family to evaluate it according to certain criteria. Overall, that system works and more than 800,000 people receive social aid from the state. That is a rather strong mechanism for assisting the most indigent.

- One of the priorities in the action plan is improving the rating system for assessing socially vulnerable people. What are the shortcomings of the current system?

While visiting regions, I saw first-hand how those people to whom we provide social assistance really live. Our objective is not only to assist those people, but also to create preconditions for them to exit poverty. Therefore, we must better adjust the rating system to the reality. For example, bordering districts face a problem. Under the existing model, if a member of a family crosses Georgia’s border, it is assumed that family has income and that may push up scores so that the family loses social assistance. Hence, I am thinking of revising the border-crossing item in the evaluation system.

- But, the simplification of criteria will lead to an increase in the number of socially vulnerable people. Besides, a rating system can never be perfect and some statistical error will exist anyway.

The number may increase a little, but we must assist those who are really needy. On the one hand, the state declares that a computer is no longer a luxury item in the Twenty-First Century and that children need it to receive quality education. On the other hand, a computer in a family automatically raises evaluation scores and may result in withdrawal of that family from the social database.

Who to blame when a family exceeds the upper margin of scores is an arguable issue. Under the conditions of economic growth, the population develops other types of demand. It is important to ensure that the system keeps pace with real life.

- To go back to the health care sphere, one of the key directions of reform is the privatization of hospitals. Given those conditions, will excessive activity on the part of the state impede investors in freely running their businesses and, consequently, impede any greater incentive to develop hospitals?

Quite the contrary: Steps taken by the state have created the prerequisite for attracting investments to that sphere. When hospitals were state-owned, an investor had to come, invest his capital, and then wait for a patient to come to his hospital. Therefore, an investor found it difficult to take the first step and estimate whether a hospital would prove efficient.

By creating a social database and insuring so many people, the state has made it clear that it puts huge resources into the system. Just imagine how much money the state gives to insurance companies. That has encouraged investors to take that first step, has attracted additional investments, and has renovated the health care infrastructure within a short time span. Today, virtually every district countrywide has its own renovated hospital equipped with modern technique.

- You noted yourself that huge amounts are allocated for insurance. In the action plan, you say that, by the end of this year, at least every second citizen will be insured. On what estimates is that plan based? Does the state possess such necessary means, including financial resources?

At present, the state insures more than 800,000 people. Starting in September, that number will be increased without exception by every pensioner, including those who live in medium- and high-income households and do not need social assistance, as well as children under the age of five. By the end of the year, more than 1.6 million people will have state insurance in addition to those citizens who have private insurance.

Resources are, naturally, calculated. Otherwise, the state would not have taken such a step. We will fulfill obligations to people which we assume.

- If the state insures increasingly more people, will that evaporate the motivation of people to take care of their own health and to choose insurance companies for themselves? Will that not impede competition in the health care sector?

The majority of those insured by the state belong to that category of people who cannot buy insurance themselves.

That will not impede competition. In parallel with the fact that the state channels resources toward the health sector via insurance companies, the insurance companies themselves broaden the private insurance base too.

The health insurance culture in Georgia is low. We realize the need for that only when we encounter a problem. Beginning in September, many families which do not now deem it necessary to buy an insurance policy will have at least one member – an elderly relative or a child – with insurance. When they start using their insurance that will create a motivation for other family members to purchase insurance and insurance companies will broaden the private base.

##image#8220#0#- Considering that taxes are paid by everyone, including the population living below the poverty line, it turns out that the poor will have to subsidize affluent groups in order for the latter to receive state insurance. Yet all that is done in the name of “social equality.”

People who are assisted by the state and have no other income practically do not pay taxes. But there is a category of citizens in the country who have income and pay taxes to the budget. We all agree that part of the taxes paid by us must be directed toward assisting the poor in the form of social aid and insurance policy. That is why that system is built upon solidarity and mutual assistance.

- Why is it necessary for the state to insure as many people as possible and not just that population living below the poverty line?

Pensioners are a high-risk group to insure, and insurance companies avoid insuring that group even though that segment of the population needs care most of all. The state says, “We take care of the future generation and the elderly. It is important that all of them are insured.”

- As regards the qualification of medical personnel, what makes you say that there are problems in that area?

Today, the managers of new clinics conduct tests to ensure that qualified people are not left outside the system or that unqualified people do not remain within the system. Risk to the health of each patient is connected to that.

We must understand that even qualified personnel may fail to save a patient. Every disease has its specific mortality rate, which cannot be avoided by any health care system. We must explain to the society that we have qualified doctors, but, if there are unprofessional ones, they will leave the system.

The state is ready to assist in this area as well. We plan to establish a training center for medical personnel where the existing contingent will regularly upgrade their qualifications. Given that any mistake by medical personnel entails high financial sanctions, insurance companies and hospital management regularly try to train medical cadres. That is an important point. We must be confident that, when we enter a hospital, we will receive qualified service.

- Why do you believe that that must be coordinated by the state and that the labor market cannot regulate the level of qualification?

The labor market does that today. But, since we see many problems in this area, the state will support the private sector. If that would take the private sector five or seven years, state intervention must shorten that term. We cannot put the health of our citizens at risk.

- As regards the mediation service which protects people with insurance, what is the need for a body that interferes in the relationship among a person, hospital and insurance company?

That very relationship must be regulated by rules of the game, which we will present to the public soon. That means that a person who enters a hospital must not be denied medical service on any ground whatsoever, regardless of which insurance company policy he or she holds.

- Will that rule not inflict financial harm on hospitals?

No, it will not. A hospital is interested in attracting patients. Its financial sustainability depends on a correct business strategy and the number of patients. A patient goes to a hospital when he or she knows that the hospital employs good and qualified doctors, has appropriate medical equipment, and provides decent service.

- What then is the motivation of hospitals to serve insured patients?

##addon#720#0#A legal or financial dispute between a hospital and an insurance company could become a problem. An insured person could go to a hospital, the hospital could spend its resources on that person, and the insurance company could say that the policy does not envisage the service provided and will not cover that sum.

Often disputes arise on the issue of adequacy of treatment provided. To receive more money, a hospital might administer unnecessary procedures to a patient. An insurance company, for its part, is interested in paying as little for a medical service as possible. In order to prevent such disputes from occurring, and to protect insured patients’ health from harm, such rules of the game must be established that will be favorable for every party.

- But, if there is competition between insurance companies and no regional monopolies exist, it would be in their interest to settle such disputes between each other, without the interference of the state.

We will have virtually no regional monopolies any longer. No matter which insurance policy you hold, you will be treated at a district hospital. There may be problems in individual cases, but that is what happens today. The state spends a lot on insurance for citizens and is also obliged to track whether citizens receive medical service commensurate with that amount.

- The action plan refers to “wise regulation.” Could you provide more details? What does that imply?

Standards must be established in clinics, and we must evaluate to what extent the quality of service provided complies with those standards. In older hospitals, it was easy to “regulate” because grave conditions and quality were conspicuous. In newer hospitals, where license requirements are observed and medical equipment operates smoothly, wise regulation is needed for the quality control of service. An essential part of that regulation will be the introduction of protocols in hospitals. These are standards of treatment establishing what specific procedures must be undertaken in case of this or that disease. Thus, we will be able to control easily whether or not everything has been done for the treatment of a patient.

That is favorable for doctors and paramedics – no one will challenge that they have not done everything necessary for a patient. If a patient files a complaint against medical personnel, they will refer to the protocol which is recognized by an association in the relevant field.

On the other hand, that will be advantageous for insurance companies by enabling them to control easily the fulfillment of a contract with a hospital. Where a protocol is introduced, it is easy to establish a tariff for treatment as well.

- Given that the state assumes quite a responsibility in the health care sector, can it be said that the main goal of health care policy remains the liberalization of the service sphere? I mean, freeing hospitals from state management too?

Of course, it does. We should, however, not forget that there is public health care – the spheres which state management will never let go. Psychiatry and AIDS will always remain in the hands of the state. In other cases, that is exactly what happens – hospitals are independent business entities.

- Let us touch upon the pharmaceutical sphere as well. The former Minister of Health, Andria Urushadze, told Tabula that work on deregulation of the pharmaceutical market would continue. That reform has already brought about result – competition and the emergence of new drugstores have pushed prices down. How do you view that process?

That policy will continue in that direction. We see one important problem in this area: Medicines have become cheaper in some cases by as much as thirty percent, but the medication share of the total health care expenditure is still disproportionally high. By liberalizing the market, we must achieve a decrease in the medication share of total health expenditures and an increase in the share of in-patient service. Grave illnesses must be detected at initial stages.

- What is your vision concerning the labor relationship?

We have a liberal Labor Code. Georgia needs fast economic growth. We respond to the problem of unemployment by creating an attractive economic environment for investors which generates new jobs. Had we not had an attractive market and investments, we would have had no budget revenues for health care expenditures.

Nevertheless, we may still need to reassess the situation in this area in the future. We shun excessive regulation, but, wherever it is needed, we are prepared to consider any proposal. However, at this stage, we think the Labor Code meets the requirements of the country.

This article first appeared in Tabula Georgian Issue #96, published 16 April 2012.