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Georgia The Struggle for Control
In May 1991, Gamsakhurdia was elected president of Georgia
(receiving over 86 percent of the vote) in the first popular
presidential election in a Soviet republic. Apparently perceiving
the election as a mandate to run Georgia personally, Gamsakhurdia
made increasingly erratic policy and personnel decisions in the
months that followed, while his attitude toward the opposition
became more strident. After intense conflict with Gamsakhurdia,
Prime Minister Tengiz Sigua resigned in August 1991.
The August 1991 coup attempt against Gorbachev in Moscow
marked a turning point in Georgian as well as in Soviet politics.
Gamsakhurdia made it clear that he believed the coup, headed by
the Soviet minister of defense and the head of the KGB, was both
inevitable and likely to succeed. Accordingly, he ordered Russian
president Boris N. Yeltsin's proclamations against the coup
removed from the streets of Tbilisi. Gamsakhurdia also ordered
the National Guard to turn in its weapons, disband, and integrate
itself into the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Opposition leaders immediately denounced this action as
capitulation to the coup. In defiance of Gamskhurdia, National
Guard commander Tengiz Kitovani led most of his troops out of
Tbilisi.
The opposition to Gamsakhurdia, now joined in an uneasy
coalition behind Sigua and Kitovani, demanded that Gamsakhurdia
resign and call new parliamentary elections. Gamsakhurdia refused
to compromise, and his troops forcibly dispersed a large
opposition rally in Tbilisi in September 1991. Chanturia, whose
National Democratic Party was one of the most active opposition
groups at that time, was arrested and imprisoned on charges of
seeking help from Moscow to overthrow the government.
In the ensuing period, both the government and
extraparliamentary opposition intensified the purchase and
"liberation" of large quantities of weapons--mostly from Soviet
military units stationed in Georgia--including heavy artillery,
tanks, helicopter gunships, and armored personnel carriers. On
December 22, intense fighting broke out in central Tbilisi after
government troops again used force to disperse demonstrators. At
this point, the National Guard and the Mkhedrioni besieged
Gamsakhurdia and his supporters in the heavily fortified
parliament building. Gunfire and bombs severely damaged central
Tbilisi, and Gamsakhurdia fled the city in early January 1992 to
seek refuge outside Georgia.
Data as of March 1994
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