Zurab Zhvania (December 9, 1963 – February 3, 2005) was a prominent Georgian politician, having served as Prime Minister of Georgia and Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia as well as Minister without Portfolio. Zhvania assumed premiership on 18 February 2004 and remained on the position until his death on 3 February 2005. Zurab Zhvania is the only Georgian Prime Minister to have died whilst being in office.Zhvania was born in Tbilisi to a Georgian father and Armenian mother. In 1985 he graduated from the Faculty of Biology of the Tbilisi Ivane Javakhishvili State University. He worked at the university through 1992. Zhvania entered national politics in 1988. Between 1988 and 1990, Georgia's Green Party, which Zhvania co-chaired, was one of a number of opposition groups that took part in the country's drive to regain its independence. In September 1991 his party joined the opposition to the government of the first post-Soviet President of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Gamsakhurdia's violent overthrow in January 1992 resulted in Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister, coming to power a few months later.The parliamentary elections of November 2, 2003 were widely condemned by local and international observers as being grossly rigged by the government. In response, Zhvania and other opposition figures called for mass protests against Shevardnadze. Two weeks of massive popular protests followed, forcing Shevardnadze's resignation on November 23. He was replaced on an interim basis by Zhvania's successor as parliamentary speaker, Nino Burjanadze. Zhvania himself became a minister in the transitional government prior to fresh presidential elections held on January 4, 2004, which were won by Saakashvili.

Zhvania died early in the morning of February 3, 2005 from what officials claimed was carbon monoxide poisoning, due to an inadequately ventilated gas heater. He was in a rented apartment with Raul Usupov, deputy governor of Georgia's Kvemo Kartli region, at the time. Usupov also died. President Mikheil Saakashvili, at an emergency Cabinet meeting, said, "In Zurab Zhvania, Georgia has lost a great patriot, who devoted his entire life to serving the motherland. Zurab's death is a great blow to Georgia and to me personally. I lost a very close friend, a reliable adviser and a great ally. I want to call on you all to be strong, because there is no greater responsibility than loyal service to our country and our people."

NINO BURJANADZE

Nino Burjanadze, (also romanized Burdzhanadze or Burdjanadze, born 16 July 1964) is a Georgian politician and lawyer who served as Chairperson of the Parliament of Georgia from November 2001 to June 2008. She has served as the acting head of state of Georgia twice; the first time from 23 November 2003 to 25 January 2004 in the wake of Eduard Shevardnadze's resignation during the Rose Revolution, and again from 25 November 2007 to 20 January 2008, when Mikheil Saakashvili stepped down to rerun in the early presidential elections.

Nino Burjanadze was born in Kutaisi, then-Soviet Georgia. She graduated in 1986 from the Faculty of Law of the Tbilisi State University (TSU) and afterwards pursued education at the Moscow State University from which she graduated with a doctorate in International Law in 1990. In 1991, she became an docent (Associate Professor) of the Faculty of International Law at the Tbilisi State University. At the same time, she worked as an expert-consultant in international law for the Parliament of Georgia and the Ministry for Environment Protection and Natural Resources.In 1995, Burjanadze was elected to the Parliament of Georgia from the Union of Citizens of Georgia (UCG) then chaired by the President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze and supported financially by her father Anzor Burjanadze, a wealthy businessman. After the rigged parliamentary elections of 2 November 2003, she joined other opposition leaders in denouncing the election results and urging mass demonstrations against Shevardnadze. The terms of the Georgian constitution automatically made her the acting president when Shevardnadze resigned on 23 November. One of Burjanadze's first actions was to appeal for national unity and repeal the state of emergency declared by Shevardnadze, in an effort to restore stability to a country with a long history of political violence. She was an obvious candidate for the post, as she is widely respected by her compatriots - opinion polling in 2003 showed her to be one of Georgia's three most popular political figures. Burjanadze is married to Badri Bitsadze, the former head of the Department of Georgian State Border Defence, who stood down shortly after Burdjanadze's political transformation. They have two sons.

Your Ad Here

EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE - FORMER PRESIDENT OF GEORGIA

born Jan. 25, 1928, Mamati, Georgia, U.S.S.R. Georgian politician, who was foreighn minister of the Soviet Union (1985–90, 1991) and head of state of Georgia (1992–2003).
The son of a Georgian teacher, Shevardnadze became a Komsomol (Young Communist League) member and rose steadily in the hierarchy, becoming first secretary of Georgia’s Komsomol Central Committee (1957–61). While in charge of the Georgian police (1965–72), he gained prominence in the regular party apparatus in Tbilisi, the capital, becoming first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia in 1972.
Shevardnadze became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1976 and a candidate member of the Politburo in 1978. In 1985 the new Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev promoted Shevardnadze to full membership in the ruling Politburo and named him minister of foreign affairs, succeeding Andrey Gromyko.
As foreign minister, Shevardnadze skillfully helped implement Gorbachev’s foreign-policy initiatives, including the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1988, the negotiation of new arms treaties with the United States, and tacit acquiescence in the fall of communist governments across eastern Europe in 1989–90. He was one of Gorbachev’s closest colleagues and one of the most effective proponents of the reform policies of glasnost and perestroika. Shevardnadze resigned suddenly in December 1990, however, in protest against the growing influence of antireform members of Gorbachev’s government. After the failed coup by communist hard-liners in 1991, he returned briefly as Soviet foreign minister (November 19–December 25), only to see the Soviet Union collapse.
The overthrow of Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia in January 1992 left a leadership vacuum that Shevardnadze filled on his return to Georgia in March as chairman of the State Council, an office then equivalent to president. In October 1992 his leadership was confirmed when he was elected chairman of parliament. Shevardnadze fought organized crime and tried to find solutions for separatist violence in the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In August 1995 he survived an assassination attempt in which a car bomb exploded near his motorcade as he traveled to a signing ceremony for a new Georgian constitution. He was elected president of Georgia in November 1995.
As president, Shevardnadze faced numerous problems, including a failing economy and charges of government corruption and cronyism. In 2000 he was reelected president amid allegations of voting irregularities. Unrest with his government grew, especially after parliamentary elections in November 2003 in which charges of widespread irregularities and fraud were raised. Faced with numerous protests, Shevardnadze resigned as president on November 23. The November election results were subsequently voided by the courts.
Shevardnadze’s memoir, Pikri carsulsa da momavalze (“Thoughts About the Past and Future”), was published in 2006.

ROSE REVOLUTION

Georgia held parliamentary elections on November 2, 2003. At stake were 235 seats in parliament of which 135 would be decided by a nationwide proportional party-list system and 85 were "majoritarian" contests in which a "first past the post" winner would be determined in each of Georgia's 85 electoral districts. In addition, a nationwide referendum was held on whether the future parliament should be reduced to 150 members. Voters used a separate ballot for each of these three contests, folding them together and placing them in a single envelope which was then put in the ballot box. This was not a presidential election; that was set to occur in the spring of 2005, at the expiration of President Shevardnadze's second and final term.

Subsequently, the elections were denounced by local and international observers as being grossly rigged in favor of Shevardnadze.[citation needed] Mikheil Saakashvili claimed that he had won the elections (a claim supported by independent exit polls). This was confirmed by an independent parallel vote tabulation (PVT) conducted by the ISFED (International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, local election monitoring group). Saakashvilli and the united opposition accepted ISFED's PVT as "official" results, and urged Georgians to demonstrate against Shevardnadze's government and engage in nonviolent civil disobedience against the authorities. The main democratic opposition parties united to demand the ousting of Shevardnadze and the rerun of the elections.

In mid-November, massive anti-governmental demonstrations started in the central streets of Tbilisi, soon involving almost all major cities and towns of Georgia. The "Kmara" ("Enough!") youth organization (a Georgian counterpart of the Serbian "Otpor") and several NGOs, like the Liberty Institute, were active in all protest activities. Shevardnadze’s government was backed by Aslan Abashidze, the semi-separatist leader of autonomous Ajara region, who sent thousands of his supporters to hold a pro-governmental counter-demonstration in Tbilisi.

The opposition protest reached its peak on November 22, when President Shevardnadze attempted to open the new session of parliament. This session was considered illegitimate by the major opposition parties. Supporters of two of those parties, led by Saakashvili, burst into the session with roses in their hands (hence the name Rose Revolution), interrupting a speech of President Eduard Shevardnadze and forcing him to escape with his bodyguards. He later declared a state of emergency and began to mobilize troops and police near his residence in Tbilisi. However, the elite military units refused to support the government. In the evening of November 23 (St George's Day in Georgia), Shevardnadze met with the opposition leaders Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania to discuss the situation, in a meeting arranged by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. After the meeting, the president announced his resignation. That prompted euphoria in the streets of Tbilisi. More than 100,000 protesters celebrated the victory all night long, accompanied by fireworks and rock concerts.

The outgoing speaker of parliament, Nino Burjanadze, assumed the presidency until new elections could be held. The Supreme Court of Georgia annulled the results of the parliamentary elections.

MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI

Mikheil Saakashvili  (born 21 December 1967) is a Georgian politician, the President of Georgia and leader of the United National Movement Party. Saakashvili became President of Georgia on 25 January 2004 after President Eduard Shevardnadze resigned in a November 2003 bloodless "Rose Revolution" led by Saakashvili and his political allies, Nino Burjanadze and Zurab Zhvania. Saakashvili was re-elected in the early Georgian presidential election of 5 January 2008. He is widely regarded as a pro-Western leader who has spearheaded a series of political and economical reforms, but has been criticized for authoritarian tendencies and worsening human rights record in the country. Opposition parties have also accused him of rigging elections and using riot police to crush opposition rallies.

He is married to Sandra E. Roelofs, of Dutch origin, and has two sons, Eduard and Nikoloz. Apart from his native Georgian, he speaks fluent English, French, Russian and Ukrainian, and has some command of Ossetian and Spanish.