End of the Saakashvili era

[fridi]

There's an election going on in Georgia as we speak (the country Georgia, the one in the Caucasus). And it marks the end of an era. The era of Mikheil Saakashvili. After two terms at the helm, he doesn't have the right to run again for president. So he's stepping down. But the deep mark he left in the Georgian society remains.

For about a decade, Saakashvili has changed the country like no one before him. 10 years ago he was the hero of the so called Rose Revolution. The one that made Georgia the first former Soviet republic to change the regime after mass popular demonstrations. The reason for the protests were the forged results of the parliamentary elections in 2003. Three weeks after the protests erupted, the then president Eduard Shevardnadze was forced to resign. And in January 2004 Saakashvili won the presidential election and started vast reforms.

So far so good, but...