Well at least Georgia got a mention tonight in Bush’s State of the Union. Given there are roughly 195 countries in the world, to get a positive mention from, arguably, the most powerful man in the world is pretty good. Especially when the reference is a positive one;

“In the last 7 years, we have witnessed stirring moments in the history of liberty. We have seen citizens in Georgia and Ukraine stand up for their right to free and fair elections.”

Not bad for a little country of 5 million people

Georgia’s exports to Russia declined 30% YOY in 2007 to $53 million, while Russian imports into Georgia grew 3.6% to $578 million, the Georgian statistics department said on Monday.

The department said Georgia’s exports to Russia declined in the reporting period due to the continued ban on the imports of Georgian wine, mineral water and agricultural products.

Trade with Russia accounted for 9.8% of Georgia’s foreign trade in 2007, 3.9 percentage points less than in 2006, the statistics department said.

While a 30% drop in trade with one country is certainly significant, the fact that Russia only accounts for less than 10% of Georgian trade shows how much Georgia has integrated into the rest of world.

A short 15 years ago, Georgia was a Soviet State, and essentially, 100% of its trade was with Russia. To diversify that to 10% is a great testament of the desire of Georgia to be player on the world economic market.

The election in Georgia is over. Mikheil Saakashvili won re-election but with only 57% of the vote. What is different is that he appears to have won a largely fair election, he ran against a number of opponents (no 99% of the vote here), he went to church with his main competitor after the election closed and there were peaceful demonstrations after his inauguration.

All of this is very good news for struggling democracy. There was no revolution, no bloodshed, no rigged election and no clamp down on the opposition.

Georgia wants to be part of NATA and the EU; this election goes a long way towards showing a country that is maturing democratically and deserves to join the west economically and militarily.

http://www.eurasianet.org/geovote08/news/012108.shtml

To no ones big surprise Misha (Mikheil Saakashvili) won the Georgian election. I think what was a little surprising was that he got 52% of the vote so no runoff election is needed and he is the president. It’s also noteworthy that by all international accounts, the election as fair. There were over 1000 independent monitors in Georgia and they overwhelmingly confirmed the election was mostly fair.

In his first election Misha got over 90% of the vote, this time only 52%. BUT, this may have been the most fair, balanced and challenged election in the entire post Soviet history. Almost every other election among the post Soviet countries has resulted in the wining candidate usually getting over 90% of the vote.

I think this shows a maturity in the country of Georgia as a whole. Politically the country may be getting more stable, which is exactly what NATA and the EU want to see before letting Georgia join.

Well Georgia is about to choose a new president. It appears to me that Misha (Mikheil Saakashvili) is the odds on favorite to retain his presidency. It’s interesting from Ndoba’s point of view that the main opposition candidate is Levan Gachechiladze who made his fortune in the wine industry. One of Levan’s platforms is to continue to open up the Georgian wine industry and expand it world-wide.