Georgia leader outlines priorities
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Opposition leaders are on the front page after Shevardnadze's resignation.
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Demonstrators celebrate as president quits
Saakashvili on fall of Shevardnadze's presidency.
Shevardnadze resigns as protests fail to abate
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| NINO BURDZHANADZE |
Age: 39, married with two daughters A trained lawyer she worked as a professor of international relations and law at Tbilisi State University First elected to parliament in 1995 she was elected speaker in 2001 Initially a Shevardnadze supporter she broke relations with the former president in 2003 over the national budget and allegations of mounting corruption
Source: Associated Press |
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TBILISI, Georgia (CNN) -- Interim Georgian president Nino Burdzhanadze says her top priorities will be to maintain stability in the country and prepare for new elections following the resignation of former leader Eduard Shevardnadze.
"We need to have peace in the country," she told CNN Monday after a meeting with the National Security Council of Georgia during which she discussed the issue.
Shevardnadze's resignation Sunday ended his 11-year reign as president of the small former Soviet republic and handed a major victory to the tens of thousands of protesters who had occupied key government buildings and filled the square in front of the nation's parliament.
After the announcement, they reveled in their victory in the square, jubilant.
Burdzhanadze acknowledged that the country is beset by corruption, but said there is little she will be able to do to combat it during her 44-day tenure at the helm of the impoverished nation.
"I think it's very important just now to do everything to improve the budgetary situation in the country," she said.
Burdzhanadze added that she will focus on laying the groundwork for free and fair presidential elections, but said she is likely to delay parliamentary elections until April or May.
"To have simultaneously both elections would be a very difficult issue, I think," she told CNN.
Preparing just for presidential elections in such a short period of time will be difficult, she said, and she appealed to the international community for money to help hold them. "We need moral, political and financial support for new, free and fair elections."
Outrage over the November 2 parliamentary elections, which Georgia's Supreme Court decided were neither free nor fair, led to Shevardnadze's ouster.
For many Georgians, the economic situation is dire. Pensioners have been waiting more than five months for their $7 monthly payments, she said, adding, "I really don't know how people can survive in this country."
The country of about 5 million people in the Caucasus Mountains is one of the poorest nations of the former Soviet Union. The average daily wage is about $1.
It gets financial support from the United States, but opposition leaders have argued that much of that money was misspent by Shevardnadze.
In his first television interview after resigning, Shevardnadze said Monday that he quit to avoid bloodshed. "Many people would have died," he said. "I am convinced it was the only way out."
Massive demonstrations in front of the Parliament included "a lot of drunks who couldn't control their behavior," he told CNN in a half-hour, wide-ranging interview. "There was no other decision I could make."
The 75-year-old former Soviet minister of foreign affairs said his family urged him more than a month ago to quit, but he could not. "My feeling of responsibility to the people didn't allow me to take this step earlier," he said.
Despite the country's poverty, its freedom of the press, freedom of speech and other democratic values put it in good stead, he said. "I don't know too many countries where things are at such a high level as in Georgia."
About the rigged parliamentary elections, Shevardnadze acknowledged that voter lists were falsified, but would not cast blame. "Who's responsible? The computer or the person at the keyboard? I don't want to say anything more."
Shevardnadze said the decision to step down was his alone, and the U.S. government did not pressure him. "I had and have an excellent relationship with the U.S. government," he said. "Over the last 10 years, we created a special relationship between the United States and the Georgian people, and I recommend that we continue it."
Asked about his plans, he said, "It wouldn't be right if I were to tell you I have a lot of choices."
He said he would write his memoirs, and include material dating back to the Cold War era.
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Opposition supporters outside the Georgian parliament on Monday
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He said he turned down an invitation from Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to move there. "I was born here, I was raised here and I will stay here," Shevardnadze vowed.
In Washington, a White House spokesman said Monday that the Bush administration is pleased with the resignation and will support Georgia's new interim government.
Burdzhanadze is the last elected speaker of the country's parliament and is expected to run against another opposition leader, Mikhail Saakashvili. The White House would not say if it had a preference between the two, but said it would support "free and fair elections."
National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said it is too soon to know what role the United States would play in the presidential election, such as whether it would monitor them. "Now we are just urging all sides to work together," he said.
In a written statement, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, "The U.S. supports the stability and sovereignty of a democratic Georgia and is committed to helping the Georgian people emerge from this crisis."
Secretary of State Colin Powell called the interim president "to offer our support and to encourage her and her colleagues to proceed in a manner consistent with Georgia's constitution," the spokesman said.
Burdzhanadze said Powell called her Saturday. "He promised serious support from the side of the United States," she said.
Powell also praised the decision of Shevardnadze, 75, to step down from office. (Full story)
Georgia plays an important geopolitical role. It borders Chechnya, the disputed Russian region in which Muslim militants are fighting for a breakaway Islamic republic. U.S. officials have said there are links between Islamic militant groups in Chechnya and al Qaeda.
The United States has nearly 100 servicemen in Georgia, including more than two dozen Marines training Georgian soldiers in counterterrorism tactics.
Georgia also borders Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
An international consortium is building an oil and gas pipeline through Georgia to move oil from the Caspian Sea to a Turkish port. Caspian oil is seen as a way to decrease dependence on oil from the Persian Gulf.
-- CNN Correspondents Ryan Chilcote and Jill Dougherty in Tbilisi and Suzanne Malveaux in Washington contributed to this story.
