Rose revolutionary wins

last updated 8 January 2015

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.”