The November 17 inauguration of Georgia's new president, 44-year-old Giorgi Margvelashvili, was quick and cheap, as promised. After an orchestral overture and salutes from military commanders in the courtyard of the former parliament building, Margvelashvili delivered a carefully worded, 15-minute speech before dignitaries, and called it a day.
By comparison, President Mikheil Saakashvili’s first inauguration in 2004 was more akin to the set for a Hollywood epic, complete with an all-out military parade and an oath delivered kneeling on an ancient king’s grave.
Yet for all the fresh emphasis on ceremonial modesty, the points made by Margvelashvili may not sound far different from those of his predecessor.
As his paladin, Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili listened from the bleachers, the onetime education minister vowed to press for integration with the West and reconciliation with the North. He promised to guard the special status of the Georgian Orthodox Church and to defend the rights of religious and other minorities. And he invited the separatist Abkhaz and South Ossetians back home, to Tbilisi's embrace.
"European-style" democracy has arrived, he underlined, and, henceforth, the “post-Soviet” adjective can be dropped from Georgia. As proof, he cited the country's allegedly pluralized media and the largely clean transition of power in the 2012 parliamentary and 2013 presidential elections.
But one key part of Georgia's diversified political system -- now ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili and his opposition United National Movement -- opted out of the inauguration. Some critics charged that, as an attention hog, Saakashvili could not bear to share the spotlight with Margvelashvili. In an open letter, the president himself put the blame on what he considers to be the Ivanishvili government's political persecution of his allies and former colleagues. Instead, to mark his departure, he invited the public in to tour the glass-domed presidential palace, a Misha pet-project, before it's handed over to house a university.
Supposedly in a move designed to reflex the president's reduced constitutional powers (the bulk of power now lies with the prime minister), Margvelashvili will take up residence in a 19th century mansion (the former US embassy) in Tbilisi's old town. Remodeling the house to accommodate the president and his staff is taking more taxpayer money, but, heck, the government's reasoning appears to go, Misha spent more.
For now, it is too early to pass judgment on how new or changed Georgia actually is. Margvelashvili and his team have five more years to prove that the metamorphosis from the Soviet past is final.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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