Tbilisi
Georgians elected the young, U.S.-educated lawyer Mikhail Saakashvili as their new president in a landslide this week. Saakashvili, 36, led the peaceful protests that prompted the ouster of longtime Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze in December. After the lawyer stormed the parliament building brandishing a rose instead of a gun, Shevardnadze stepped down, in what was quickly dubbed the Rose Revolution. Saakashvili pledged to fight the government corruption and cronyism for which Georgia had become notorious under Shevardnadze. “We have prepared very serious anti-corruption measures,” the new president said. “We will hold responsible all those government officials who brought the country to the crisis we are in today.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
How will China’s $1 trillion trade surplus change the world economy?Today’s Big Question Europe may impose its own tariffs
-
‘Autarky and nostalgia aren’t cure-alls’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Japan’s Princess Aiko is a national star. Her fans want even more.IN THE SPOTLIGHT Fresh off her first solo state visit to Laos, Princess Aiko has become the face of a Japanese royal family facing 21st-century obsolescence
