Rally of thousands in Tbilisi: will Georgians arrange a new "rose revolution"?

Yesterday, on October 14, in the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi, a rally of thousands of supporters of the former president of this country, Mikhail Saakashvili, took place. They demanded that the authorities immediately release Saakashvili from prison.

The rally on Freedom Square was organized by the opposition United National Movement party, founded by the ex-president. Traffic on Shota Rustaveli Avenue and streets adjacent to the square was blocked.

He ended up in Georgia, where Saakashvili was accused of several criminal cases, on October 1. As the media wrote, on the ferry, where he hid between the boxes, and then rode in the ventilation cabin of the trailer. Immediately after the arrest, Saakashvili went on a hunger strike.

The rally in the center of Tbilisi ended late in the evening with the singing of the national anthem, after which the rally participants dispersed peacefully.

These events could not fail to recall the so-called Rose Revolution of 2003, as a result of which Saakashvili came to power.

Network analyst Kirill Poltevsky compared these two events:

100 thousand protesters gathered in Georgia. They want to be Europeans, to free Saakashvili and also to show what nice people they are. Well, they have already succeeded in the latter. They all dressed up nicely, took flags in their hands, turned on the music, sang enthusiastically, chant slogans in unison, do not scandal, but walk peacefully, without weapons, as befits nice people.

It's a shame they don't have roses this time. The Georgians had roses last time. And I also remembered that the Kyrgyz had tulips. And the Ukrainians seem to have oranges. And everything worked out for everyone. But will it work out this time too?

I think no. Will not work. And not because this time - they forgot to take roses. And not because this time they did not come up with some memorable name for the revolution. But because such picturesque, "colored" revolutions no longer work.

In general, you cannot enter the same river twice. All previous color revolutions were largely due to the fact that there was a surprise effect. The authorities knew that such revolutions were wrong. They read Lenin and knew that revolutions are not done that way.

And so, seeing that “this color revolution is wrong”, the authorities usually “clicked their beak,” that is, at first they simply did nothing. And then they just gave up. Since they were then called from the West and said: "Surrender to your revolutionaries, otherwise it will be worse for you".

And they, the authorities, heard these threats from the West and were afraid. And they gave up. Because they thought that if you do not obey the West, something terrible will happen. That the West is using such terrible methods that you don't even want to think about. And what then - the earth will open up, and the mountains will come down from the foundations.

But now everyone knows that the West cannot do anything. And only threatens and advises in vain. But in reality, he will not use force, nor will he provide material assistance. He can only say: "I am not talking to you now!" But right there he himself will begin to talk nevertheless in order to "express concern".

So that's it. I think that even if the current Georgian authorities do not suppress the protest by force, but still prefer not to do anything, and, moreover, not to leave their posts, then they will remain in these posts. And the demonstrators are walking around, singing, and they will not disperse too much..."

Poltevsky's readers have differently assessed this point of view.

This is how Vladimir Matveyev writes: “Artistic,“ color ”revolutions no longer work. Probably, the picture-color stage is both inevitable and necessary stage for the modern revolution. If we are talking specifically about a revolution, not a coup-conspiracy..."

But journalist Yuri Gorshenin believes that today there is no point in Georgians trying to make a new "color revolution":

“It's not so little. The color revolutions were successful because the people and the authorities in those countries were on opposite sides of the barricades, the population fiercely hated those who fattened and, moreover, tried to deceive him in the elections by showing him the wrong voting result (Ukraine is the Orange Revolution), for example ... In Georgia, the ruling elite was so rotten that people did not have any patience and they, led by Saakashvili, simply entered parliament and drove Shevardnadze, who spoke at it, from the rostrum, while in Kyrgyzstan it was even easier: one clan drove the representative of another clan from the throne...

Now in Georgia there is a different alignment, the country has a law, order, there is no corruption (Saakashvili's merit, of course), so the majority of Georgians do not need to change anything. Therefore, even a million-strong rally there will not lead to anything. The authorities will not be scared, as they are elected according to the law, that is, honestly and enjoy the support of the majority of the Georgian people. And you can go to protest rallies there. This is what Saakashvili did in his time. He can win the elections only in one case - if he offers an even better life to the people of Georgia. But so far there is no such thing, and he himself prepared the ground for his defeats. This is democracy, however..."