Opinion Editorials, November 2003, www.aljazeerah.info
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people
Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
Georgia on the mind of Eduard
Gulf News, 24-11-2003
It is one of the most gratifying sights to see people reclaim power after fraudulent elections. And the Georgian elections were fraudulent. It was not just the EU and US election monitors that said this but Georgian officials closely tied to Eduard Shevardnadze, a man who once portrayed the human face of Moscow. Let us be clear about this: Shevardnadze is a discredited leader, a man who spectacularly failed his nation, a president who did little to stop rampant corruption.
The decline of this man's political and moral stature is all the more disheartening for those who remember his role as the Soviet Union's foreign minister, when he charmed the West and projected a kinder, softer more humanitarian image for Moscow and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Not that his entire tenure as Georgian leader is a disaster. Indeed he did the state no little service when he took over in 1992 and stabilised the country after a bitter civil war following the overthrow of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, its first democratically elected president after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Like his old mentor, Gorbachev, Shevardnadze was increasingly vilified at home despite his international stature. But the vast majority of Georgians were well and truly fed up with his rule when he promised to hold free and fair elections and then oversaw a deeply flawed process.
On election day, November 2, observers said the elections were marred by spectacular irregularities. The result, giving victory to two blocs which backed Shevardnadze, were completely at odds with opinion polls suggesting the exact opposite. There was something rotten in the state of Georgia.
The fact that official results were not finally released until November 20, almost three weeks after election day, raised further doubts about the poll's legitimacy and Shevardnadze's fitness for office. His departure will not solve Georgia's problems but it could herald a new beginning.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03). |
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