Post-Factum Political Fluids
Op-ed
The recent hard-to-watch-and-listen-to presidential electioneering has plunged into the depths of annals to eventually sink into oblivion. Or has it? Georgia has acquired a new head of state, but it has also maintained the old political pattern, saliently protuberating from the main body of the nation as two persistent contradictory growths, one clearly constructive and the other blatantly deconstructive, as unfading ideological permanencies at the sharpest ever daggers drawn, lingering on interminably. The new she-president of the country will soon entrench herself in her new offices within a gorgeously aged mansion in the heart of downtown Tbilisi. The President-Elect has utterly defied entrance into the now functioning presidential chambers, her inaugural event being threatened with the oppositional non-acceptance of her electoral supremacy by the lame-ducked other party. Normally, a new president should symbolize the new beginning of life, new ideas, new projects and a new perspective, but the lady of the highest office of the nation will first have to face the old adversary with already antiquated slogans and rallying cries.
The opposition has harshly rebuffed the concession opportunity and is threatening to continue fighting for a cause that has already been registered as their defeat and as another political victory of the present ruling force. The force hostile to this government has declared the outcome of the presidential elections in Georgia null and void, and is now insisting on pre-term parliamentary elections.
The shattered opposition, seemingly still united, keeps presenting itself to the people of Georgia in its habitual belligerent style, focused on political revenge and takeover of power at any possible cost. From somewhere, the utterly radicalized appeals of the wriggling opposition are heard to resort to civil disobedience without delay and bring down the government: upheaval is the aim and cataclysm is the way out! Thank God, the nation has decisively rejected the reckless call. The beaten-to-death and visibly overwhelmed seekers of power are still trying to make their voices heard, loudly blaring into their rusting microphones.
The street political life continues to persist in the land. The sides do not want to desist from recriminating each other with exactly the same gusto and lexis that was used during the overstrained electoral campaign. The taxpayers, who have to be busy in the process of production, carry on standing in front of the government house, a building which has seen more rallies and manifestations in the last 30 years than any other edifice in the world. On the other side of the political riverbank, post-electoral delight has beset the leaders of the show, but it would be fair to say that nothing euphoric is outwardly demonstrated on their part, and the comments on the cherished victory are made reservedly and self-confidently enough, which definitely helps to maintain calm in the country.
The New Year expectation sees the streets of the capital already glittering with decorations – time to celebrate! But every sparkle of light or any sign of a good life is killing the joy of the opposition, who wants it all bad and ruined. The ruling powers want to pull the country out of the sticky electoral aftermath but the opposition is eager to hold the nation in the same hellish election-time quandary.
The game does not look to be over and it is full of foul play; the main referee, the people of Georgia, is now so exhausted that it would, if it could, disconnect the raging information sources so that no political judgments and estimations are heard for a long time to come. What people actually long for is something that looks like regular human happiness, expressed in elementary things like good food and drink, good clothes and abode, good health, good education and a good chance to travel . . . just to feel as human as possible. Seemingly, every political effort should be dedicated to providing those elementary staples of everyday life, but the impression is that in our reality, saturated with numerous predicaments, politics is done only for the sake of politics, having turned into a dreamy night’s sleep which in the morning might present a wistful politician a prospect of further success. Meanwhile, the people, valued by them only as voters, will continue toiling as they always toiled before, to somehow snatch a chance of survival from the cruel post-electoral veracity of life: a chance as trivial as it was before the election age.
By Nugzar B. Ruhadze