Richard Miles And The Rose Revolution

“And the roses of course which people had with them, which Misha carried with him into the parliament hall, that was the moment when people said that it was a rose revolution.” This quote from a student activist describes the dramatic Rose Revolution that occurred in Georgia in November of 2003, when a group of protestors led by Mikhail, or Misha, Saakashvili stormed the Georgian parliament carrying roses in their hands to protest an election stolen by the country’s autocratic leader, Eduard Shevardnadze. Shevardnadze resigned soon after, leading to new elections in which Saakashvili was elected president. The Rose Revolution was one of several popular revolutions in the early 2000s in the post-communist world known as the Color Revolutions

Partially due to the regime allowing NGOs to have a large presence in Georgia, it was evident to the populace soon after the election was held that the results were falsified. The signs of fraud were overwhelming: some people were allowed to vote multiple times, other people were arbitrarily removed by police, and one region even reported more votes than registered voters. Furthermore, Richard Miles, the US Ambassador to Georgia at the time, reports that “Shevardnadze’s government party was coming in third or fourth” in exit polls, and that the results reported by the government were statistically impossible as a result. As a result of the electoral fraud being so clear, Saakashvili, the opposition leader, was quickly able to organize protests of more than 100,000 people and then lead the famous storming of the Georgian parliament, leading to Shevardnadze’s resignation on November 22, only 20 days after the initial

Generally, “when the Rose Revolution happened, USAID programmes concentrated on free elections, functioning political institutions, and support to civil society.” More specifically, Miles discusses how the United States was involved even before the initial 2003 elections, as they “organized a massive campaign to rectify the voter registration list,” utilizing more than $1 million from USAID. Support from the United States was crucial in enabling the election fraud in 2003 to be identified easily, spurring the mass protests that quickly followed. Furthermore, support from the United States was unequivocal both before and after the Rose Revolution, with President George Bush sending Shevardnadze a letter prior to the 2003 elections, stressing the necessity that they be free and fair, and later saying in a 2005 speech that “The Rose Revolution was a powerful moment in modern history. It not only inspired the people of Georgia; it inspired others around the world that want to live in a free society.” This support of democratization by the United States was much greater than in other post-communist countries that ultimately did not democratize, such as Azerbaijan, which many speculate to be due to Azerbaijan having oil, while Georgia had a weak