Obama administration urged to step in Georgian constitutional crisis

By Julian Pecquet, www.Thehill.com

The new Georgian government is on a mission to persuade U.S. officials and lawmakers to help stave off what they describe as a pending constitutional crisis that could derail presidential elections in the U.S.-allied Russian neighbor.

Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili and his parliamentary majority, the “Georgian Dream” coalition, say President Mikheil Saakashvili is all but certain to dissolve the government right before the October elections and install his own people in power. They're urging the United States – a major military and economic donor to Georgia, with $85 million spent last year – to tell Saakashvili he needs to support a constitutional amendment that would make that impossible.

“It would not be a bad idea if the friends of Georgia, who are friends of Saakashvili as well, to give him this friendly advice,” Parliament Chairman David Usupashvili told The Hill in an interview. “It is what's best for his country.”

Usupashvili arrived in Washington Sunday and has meetings throughout the week with State Department officials and some 20 lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has long been close to Saakashvili. The president has vowed not to use his dissolution power but has so far refused to strike a deal with Ivanishvili's government.

“Of course this will [provoke] a huge conflict,” Usupashvili said. “It's more than clear that an absolute majority of Georgian citizens support the Georgian Dream coalition and its leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili.”

“He has promised not to use this power. Well, we are old enough to know that such promises are just promises. Our answer to him is, 'if you say that you have a dangerous gun in your hands and you agree that this kind of gun is not something democratic presidents have in the world, why not put it down'?”

The battle between Saakashvili and Ivanishvili ahead of last year's legislative elections played out in Washington through the dozen or so lobby shops and public relations firms they hired between the two of them. The new government has dropped many of those contracts, but has retained two top U.S. legal experts – Harvard Law School Professor Larry Lessig and Ohio Northern University Professor Howard Fenton – to make the case that Saakashvili's powers are undemocratic

Usupashvili said Saakashvili has asked that the constitutional reform be coupled with an amnesty for former government officials accused of corruption and other abuses of power. The president has accused the new government of using the courts to go after their opponents, but the government says it's merely following up on past allegations that have been gathering dust under Saakashvili.

Usupashvili said he's here to reassure lawmakers and Obama administration officials that the new government is respecting democratic reforms and isn't abandoning the west in favor of a close alliance with Russia, as Saakashvili asserts. To make his case, Usupashvili points to last week's passage of a bipartisan foreign policy blueprint that reasserts Georgia's bid for eventual membership in the European Union and rules out joining the Commonwealth of Independent States, an organization of nine former Soviet states aimed at preserving close ties with Russia.