Mikheil Saakashvili (21 December 1967-) was President of Georgia from 25 January 2004 to 17 November 2013 (succeeding Eduard Shevardnadze and preceding Giorgi Margvelashvili) and Governor of Odessa Oblast from 30 May 2015 to 9 November 2016 (succeeding Ihor Palytsia and preceding Maksym Stepanov).
Biography[]
Mikheil Saakashvili was born in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union in 1967, and he befriended future President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko while studying at university in Kiev. While interning with a New York law firm in 1995, he was convinced by Zurab Zhvania to run for Parliament as members of the Union of Citizens of Georgia, and both of them were elected. Saakashvili became the second most popular man in Georgia after President Eduard Shevardnadze himself, and he served as Justice Minister from 2000 to 2001, initiating major reforms in the justice and prison systems. However, he resigned in 2001 due to his belief that Shevardnadze had done nothing about the deep penetration of corruption into the government, warning that Georgia would turn into a criminal enclave.
Presidency[]
In October 2001, Saakashvili founded the center-right and nationalist-influenced United National Movement to provide a platform for reformist leaders in the country. The grossly rigged 2003 parliamentary elections led to widespread protests, culminating in the Rose Revolution of 2004. With the help of his allies Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze, Saakashvili won the ensuing presidential election, and he was re-elected in 2008. He was pro-NATO and pro-West, and he sparheaded a series of political and economic reforms. However, he was criticized for his authoritarian tendencies and electoral fraud, and his country lost the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. He was barred from seeking a third presidential term in 2013, and Georgian Dream candidate Giorgi Margvelashvili won the ensuing election, leading to Saakashvili leaving the country.
Ukrainian politics[]
Saakashvili went into exile in Ukraine, where he energetically supported the Euromaidan and the 2014 revolution. On 30 May 2015, President Poroshenko appointed Saakashvili as Governor of Odessa Oblast, and he was also granted Ukrainian citizenship, requiring him to give up his Georgian citizenship. On 7 November 2016, he resigned as Governor, blaming Poroshenko for enabling corruption in Odessa and in Ukraine overall, and he created the Movement of New Forces party. On 26 July 2017, Poroshenko stripped him of his citizenship, and he stayed in the United States, while promising to fight corruption in Ukraine in the future. On 12 February 2018, he was deported to Poland and later relocated to the Netherlands, and Ukraine blamed him for being financed by a criminal group linked to former dictator Viktor Yanukovych, while Georgia accused him of being behind the 2008 assassination of Georgia's richest person, Badri Patarkatsishvili.