Flamboyant protege became instant hero

TBILISI, Georgia - Mikhail Saakashvili, the driving force behind the protests that forced Georgia's president out of power Sunday, is a U.S.-educated lawyer who captured citizens' hopes with a bold campaign against corruption.

Saakashvili, 35, capped his campaign by entering the residence of his onetime mentor, President Eduard Shevardnadze, and posing an ultimatum: Resign, or opposition protesters will storm the house.

Shevardnadze, 75, signed his resignation, and Saakashvili announced it to cheering supporters on national TV, praising the president's "courageous act."

"By his resignation, he avoided spilling blood in the country," Saakashvili said.

Saakashvili's National Movement party won Nov. 2 parliamentary elections, according to independent exit polls. But when officials gave the victory to the main pro-Shevardnadze party after what the opposition called widespread vote rigging, it stirred long-building anger over the country's crime, corruption and poverty.

During nearly three weeks of protests, the tall, dark-haired Saakashvili has dominated the scene, speaking to supporters on the street, giving interviews in English to CNN and other networks and meeting with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

Saakashvili's flamboyant manner and bold language make him far more popular with the public than Nino Burdzhanadze and Zurab Zhvania, former colleagues who set up their own opposition party, the Democrats.

Saakashvili, unlike them, demanded from the outset of protests that Shevardnadze resign.

Burdzhanadze, however, will serve as interim president. She was the Parliament speaker during the legislature's previous session, and the new session never had a chance to appoint a replacement, making her the only opposition leader with a legal claim to power.

Saakashvili, who graduated from Columbia University Law School and worked briefly for a New York law firm, entered politics as a Shevardnadze loyalist.

He was elected to Parliament in 1995 and, five years later, was named justice minister by Shevardnadze.

That is when the rift between the two began. Saakashvili launched a highly public anticorruption crusade, bringing camera crews to film the luxury mansions of Georgian officials and prodding Shevardnadze to approve legislation confiscating ill-gotten property.

But Shevardnadze denounced that effort as "Bolshevik" and fired Saakashvili in 2001.

However, Saakashvili became an instant hero with the public, who resented the endemic corruption while Georgia's economy ground to a virtual halt. He and other Shevardnadze proteges broke ranks and launched opposition parties, accusing Shevardnadze of failing to deliver. Critics say Shevardnadze has tolerated widespread, brazen corruption by his lieutenants.

"It's like a nightmare," Saakashvili said recently of Shevardnadze's nearly 30-year tenure in the region, beginning as Georgia's Communist Party chief in 1972.

After his ouster, Saakashvili founded the National Movement party. He was elected chief of the Tbilisi city legislature last year and subsequently increased pensions and repaired the city's crumbling infrastructure, drawing angry rebukes from political rivals accusing him of populism.

His response: "If you call doing something a populism, well, then, just do nothing."

He has promised Georgians that once corruption is reined in, there will be more money for salaries and pensions, but he has not spelled out his economic program. Saakashvili has not yet announced a presidential bid, but it is assumed he will run.

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