Legality, Fraternity: Vision for New Georgia

TBILISI, Georgia -- Levan Mamaladze, 28, is the embodiment of Eduard Shevardnadze's vision for a federal state to bring Georgia's regions back from the brink of anarchy and desperate impoverishment.


Governor in everything but name, Mamaladze has for the last year ruled the important industrial region of Lower Karteli in southeast Georgia, bordering Azerbaijan and Armenia.


Young, energetic and enthusiastically loyal to Shevardnadze's vision, he led the battle against the Mkhedrioni, or Horsemen, a notorious armed militia who plundered the important local industries and ran protection rackets and smuggling routes through the region.


With the Mkhedrioni beaten, and sure of victory in the presidential elections, Shevardnadze laid out his vision for a federal state of Georgia in a recent speech to members of his party, Citizens Union.


Shevardnadze, whom many blame for losing Abkhazia after taking on separatists in a war in 1993, was also, his critics say, a key architect of the destruction of the Soviet Union.


Now he is propounding a system of government that he believes will ensure stability and fair treatment for the 25 remaining regions would be run by governors, appointed by and answerable to the president.


Although any constitutional control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia still appears far off -- neither of them took part in last Sunday's elections -- Shevardnadze has already gone ahead with appointing governors to other regions.


Mamaladze, an agricultural scientist from Tbilisi and co-founder of Georgia's Green Party, is one of a young breed that Shevardnadze is using to break up the old, corrupt system.


He fought on the government side in Abkhazia and later helped form the Citizens Union which nominated Shevardnadze for the presidency.


His power base, Rustavi, the regional capital of Lower Karteli, is an industrial town of 180,000, built around a huge steel plant and the Soviet Union's largest chemical factory. It was one of the main strongholds of power in the country for the Mkhedrioni and the place that Shevardnadze chose to start his crackdown against crime earlier this year.


In his office on Rustavi's central square, Mamaladze described how 60 armed Mkhedrioni burst into his office March 3, shot his bodyguard three times in the legs and threatened to kill Mamaladze if he did not lay off.


"They cracked me on the head with a pistol and blood started pouring out. I was put into my chair and they said 'Leave the Mkhedrioni alone. We control the roads and the borders.' They were swearing and cursing Shevardnadze," he said. "This was to intimidate not only me but everyone who is working with Shevardnadze."


Bus drivers waiting at the gates of Rustavi's chemical plant said they had all paid protection to the Mkhedrioni but now paid no one. Inside the plant, workers said everyone knew the Mkhedrioni were appropriating consignments of scrap metal and organizing deals of chemical products.


"It was a very difficult period," said Avto Olbzhanidze, who works in the plant's foreign sales department. "Twice there were cases where special metals were taken out of the plant," he said.


Regardless, Mamaladze pressed on with his campaign, arresting some 50 Mkhedrioni and wrenching the region free of their stranglehold. Local enterprises rebounded, he said, and now his region's contribution to state coffers held second position in the country, he said.


The main reasoning behind the federal plan is economic, Shevardnadze said in his speech, allowing local economic freedom so individual enterprise can flourish. Regions will be allowed to raise their own taxes locally, he said.


But economic issues apart, Shevardnadze plans firm central control, not least over ethnic issues, which in a country that has been torn apart by separatism and nationalism, are crucial. Lower Karteli has large ethnic Azeri, Armenian and Greek communities who, as minorities, suffered particularly from the robbery and violence that engulfed the country.


People living in the predominantly Azeri town of Gardabani, 15 kilometers east of Rustavi, described how armed gangs, who stole and killed randomly, frightened many to emigrate with their nationalist thuggery.


"They said if you did not speak Georgian you should go away," said Ivan Khabayarov, 27, an Assyrian trader who said half the town's Assyrian community had left for Russia. "We used to all live together normally. They tried to divide us. But since Shevardnadze became powerful it all ended," he said.


"Shevardnadze is very conscious of the friction areas," said BBC correspondent Robert Parsons, who has a doctorate on Georgian nationalism. "He has done quite a lot in talks with Azeri leaders. It is a particularly important part of Georgia and he realizes it has to be solved."


But the idea of a federal state would be a progressive one for Georgia, which is walking a tightrope between old and new systems, Manana Gusenyeva, an analyst at Moscow's USA/Canada Institute, said.


Shevardnadze's federal plan, which would also create a second upper house of parliament made up of regional representatives, will need the approval of the new parliament.


Georgia's new constitution, signed in August, ensures serious checks and balances on the president, granting less power than Shevardnadze enjoyed as head of state during the last three years, one Western diplomat in Tbilisi said.


Parliament has to approve all the president's ministerial appointments, as well as the budget. The president has to sign or veto all legislation but parliament can override his veto with a supermajority.