Profile: Levan Gachechiladze

This is the first in the Messenger’s series of profiles of the seven presidential candidates.





Biography
Full Name: Levan Gachechiladze
Party: United National Council, a nine-party opposition coalition
Political Office: MP and former city council member
Business experience: Founded Georgian Wine and Spirits in 1994
Date of Birth: July 20, 1964
Place of Birth: Tbilisi
Education: Tbilisi State University, faculty of mathematics and economics
Spouse: Nino Mikeladze
Children: Three sons: Rati, Gaga and Koto

A 43-year-old former businessman and long-time political figure, Levan Gachechiladze, the joint candidate of the nine-party opposition coalition, promises to be Georgia’s final president if he is elected to the office in January.

Gachechiladze drew attention with his fiery speeches to the crowd on September 28, when thousands rallied in front of parliament to protest the controversial arrest of ex-minister and would-be opposition leader Irakli Okruashvili.

He was a prominent figure in the opposition coalition forged that day, the United National Council, taking to the stage once again to rally anti-government demonstrators at the mass November 2 rally. He was the first to declare a hunger strike, demanding the resignation of then-president Mikheil Saakashvili.

He got his wish in letter, but not in spirit, when Saakashvili stepped down from the presidency weeks after the government violently dispersed the lingering protestors on November 7, plunging the capital into crisis. Saakashvili is now running for reelection on January 5.

Though Saakashvili announced the snap presidential election on November 8, it took the United National Council days to settle on a joint candidate for president. (The compromise pick didn’t please all coalition members—the Labor Party left the coalition acrimoniously by nominating their leader, Shalva Natelashvili, for the presidency before the coalition officially announced a choice.)

Gachechiladze was chosen as their presidential candidate, coalition leaders said in the November 12 press conference announcing his candidacy, precisely because he does not want to be president.

If elected, he promises to transform the country into a parliamentary republic and then resign.

An independent streak and limited ambitions

Gachechiladze has not been a member of any political party since he left what is now known as the New Rights, the party he co-founded in 1991 with friend—and now, competitor—Davit Gamkrelidze.

The New Rights is one of the few prominent opposition parties to stay out of the United National Council, and Gamkrelidze is now running his own vigorous bid for the presidency.

Gachechiladze quit the party in 2003, when other New Rights leaders refused to support that year’s Rose Revolution, which peacefully overthrow former president Eduard Shevardnadze and put Saakashvili in his place.

Gachechiladze now says he has no political ambition other than defeating Saakashvili and doing away with the institution of a strong presidency in Georgia.

“[The United National Council’s] main task is to establish the kind of political and social environment will rule out any one person or group usurping power,” he says. “The January election is the way to accomplish this. Georgia should be freed from Saakashvili and his corruptive environment. There is terror, and the violation of human rights and freedoms under [this government].”

He was the first candidate to run on a platform of turning the country into a parliamentary republic—Labor’s Natelashvili now advocates the same change—and promises to leave politics for good if he succeeds.

Once a winemaker

Gachechiladze first met success with his Georgian Wine and Spirits, founded with the help of a Dutch partner and one of the first local wineries after modern independence.

Jumber Cholobargia, who worked with Gachechiladze for almost 15 years in Georgian Wine and Spirits, characterized the candidate as authoritative and clever.

Gachechiladze always considered others’ advice in making serious decisions, Cholobargia says, but the last word was up to him.

“[One year soon after the business was founded] we were having a discussion about the quality of our wine. The winemakers said it wasn’t good enough quality to send abroad, but that it would be perfect for the Georgian market,” Cholobargia remembers. “After a long discussion, Levan made a decision which shocked us, but solved the problem in a minute. He poured out those 30 000 bottles of wine, saying that his country was more important to him than our business. And you can imagine how much of a loss the company took.”

Recognized and liked, but is it enough?

The well-known and generally well-regarded Gachechiladze brings to the table a reputation as an accomplished businessman and personable character, but he also brings a sometimes-unwieldy coalition of nine parties and a score of politicians less popular than he is.

French-born ex-foreign minister Salome Zourabichvili is the coalition’s pick for prime minister should Gachechiladze win, and would presumably take charge of the government as he strips the presidency of its powers.

Whether or not his platform and political allies are going over well with voters, the Messenger’s recent polling suggests that Gachechiladze, and Saakashvili, are the two frontrunners in this race.

Gachechiladze is also helped along by his younger brother, famous pop singer Giorgi Gachechiladze—better known as Utsnobi (the Unknown)—who has made music videos in support of his brother’s campaigns, most recently with a catchy tune portraying Saakashvili as a craven Roman emperor. (Gachechiladze has a nickname of his own: grechika, meaning buckwheat. He reportedly loved the food as a child.)

A long political history

This is not the first time Gachechiladze has faced down Saakashvili.

In 2002, Gachechiladze won a seat on the Tbilisi city council. Before running, he stepped down from his parliament seat, declaring that he will not be a politician which says one thing and does another. He is running for city council, he said, and nothing else.

With his faction’s share of the seats after those elections, he was one of two council members placed to be elected as council chair. The other was young, fast-rising opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili.

In the complex backroom battles which followed, Saakashvili won the chairmanship in part by forging an alliance with the late Zurab Zhvania. The two of them went on to lead the Rose Revolution.

Where is he weak?

There has been relatively little criticism of Gachechiladze himself from the government, which has chosen instead to focus its attacks on fellow presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili. Ruling party MP Davit Kirkitadze, however, has alleged that Gachechiladze ran his business into the ground, and is running for president only to get himself out of deep debt.

Voter criticism of Gachechiladze tends to center on impressions of him not being strong enough to hold the presidency; on the other hand, that is very much what he himself is saying.

What he wants

Gachechiladze’s policy statements do not differ radically from those advocated by the Saakashvili administration in its first four years: he wants a peaceful resolution to the secessionist conflicts of South Ossetia and Abkhazia which defends the rights of refugees and recognizes Russia as a side in the conflict, not a neutral peacekeeper as it now claims to be; to carry out special programs for civic and economic improvement in the country; and to support Georgia’s efforts to gain membership in NATO.

A notable foreign policy difference is his pledge to leave the CIS immediate, and work after that to normalize relations with Russia.

The remainder of his platform is short on detail, but that is unsurprising for a candidate who is a self-declared placeholder: if he wins in January, there won’t be many more presidential decisions to be made in Georgia.