Two months after storming Georgia's parliament armed with popular support and red roses, Mikhail Saakashvili took the oath as president on Sunday on the steps of the same building and pledged to revive the country.
The 36-year-old US-educated lawyer, one of the world's youngest elected leaders, heads a nation where one in two lives in poverty, corruption reaches almost every walk of life and separatism threatens to tear the country apart.
The small Caucasus nation is also at the crossroads of US and Russian interests - the former mindful of a strategic oil pipeline to the West, the latter delaying the closure of two military bases in the former Soviet republic for "security reasons".
Trying to maintain momentum after winning 96 percent of the vote in this month's election, Saakashvili turned his inauguration ceremony into a weekend tour of the country, preaching reconciliation, transparency and better governance.
"There was a time when people here listened to the government, now the government will listen to the people," Saakashvili said in an emotional 15-minute speech that touched on many of Georgia's myriad problems.
"Georgia should become a model democracy where every citizen enjoys equal opportunities to achieve success and to exploit their potentials and possibilities," he said.
Saakashvili took his oath standing on the steps of parliament, which was draped in huge flags of the red-and-white cross design that became an emblem of the street protests which ousted Eduard Shevardnadze after he was accused of rigging a November election.
The flag has since been adopted as the national one. A helicopter dropped red rose petals on the crowd.
Among the invited dignitaries were two men Saakashvili says he would like to be equal friends with - US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minster Igor Ivanov.
"We are a very small country and we need to survive in a very complicated geopolitical environment. I don't want to turn this country into a battlefield between different superpowers," he told foreign reporters late on Saturday.
"I am not pro-American or pro-Russian, I am pro-Georgian."
Powell, repeated that he would urge Russia to close the military bases when he visits Moscow on Monday and dismissed suggestions in Russian circles that Washington is seeking a military foothold in Georgia.
"The suggestion that somehow the United States is looking for (permanent) bases in Georgia is incorrect," he told a news conference. "We are not looking for bases."
Saakashvili said he was ready to make concessions to Moscow, which has accused Georgia of harbouring Chechen, but repeated the military bases should go.
Comments
Comments are closed.