Breaking Russia’s NATO myth
By M. Alkhazashvili
(Translated by Diana Dundua)
(Translated by Diana Dundua)
Tuesday, December 4
Perhaps it’s time Moscow sat up and faced the truth about the genuine support for integration into NATO amongst ordinary Georgians.
A line towed by many Russian politicians is that it is only Georgia’s elite who are pro-Western—having been “bought” by the West, they claim—with the population at large preferring a pro-Russian orientation.
When voters head to the ballot box and tick the accompanying “Are you in favor of NATO integration?” plebiscite on January 5, an indication of the real picture will emerge: if a recent International Republican Institute (IRI) survey is anything to go by, around 80 percent of Georgians support NATO ambitions.
Naturally, murmurings are emerging from Moscow that the NATO plebiscite will inevitably be rigged. “Georgian authorities will do their best to produce the ‘desired’ result,” the Regnum news agency quoted Russian MP Andrei Klimov as saying recently.
In reality, this is one vote there’d be no reason to rig in Georgia.
The international outcry at Tbilisi’s crackdown on protestors on November 7 and the subsequent imposition of media restrictions means a real chance of securing a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) is probably further off than the government cares to imagine.
However, in a November 23 speech, the then president, Mikheil Saakashvili, maintained that Georgia was still on course for achieving membership status in 2008, so long as “everything goes according to plan.”
Other ruling politicians are more realistic: Givi Targamadze acknowledged that Georgia’s ambitions to achieve a MAP at the April Bucharest summit had been “complicated” by recent events. But the point is that there is denial in both Russia and Georgia regarding the NATO issue.
Georgia is serious about joining the Alliance, and will remain so no matter who wins the presidential elections in January. However, it is likely to be a much more drawn-out process than the Saakashvili regime likes to make out.
A line towed by many Russian politicians is that it is only Georgia’s elite who are pro-Western—having been “bought” by the West, they claim—with the population at large preferring a pro-Russian orientation.
When voters head to the ballot box and tick the accompanying “Are you in favor of NATO integration?” plebiscite on January 5, an indication of the real picture will emerge: if a recent International Republican Institute (IRI) survey is anything to go by, around 80 percent of Georgians support NATO ambitions.
Naturally, murmurings are emerging from Moscow that the NATO plebiscite will inevitably be rigged. “Georgian authorities will do their best to produce the ‘desired’ result,” the Regnum news agency quoted Russian MP Andrei Klimov as saying recently.
In reality, this is one vote there’d be no reason to rig in Georgia.
The international outcry at Tbilisi’s crackdown on protestors on November 7 and the subsequent imposition of media restrictions means a real chance of securing a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) is probably further off than the government cares to imagine.
However, in a November 23 speech, the then president, Mikheil Saakashvili, maintained that Georgia was still on course for achieving membership status in 2008, so long as “everything goes according to plan.”
Other ruling politicians are more realistic: Givi Targamadze acknowledged that Georgia’s ambitions to achieve a MAP at the April Bucharest summit had been “complicated” by recent events. But the point is that there is denial in both Russia and Georgia regarding the NATO issue.
Georgia is serious about joining the Alliance, and will remain so no matter who wins the presidential elections in January. However, it is likely to be a much more drawn-out process than the Saakashvili regime likes to make out.