Georgian’s Halo Loses Magic Glow

At the center of the political firestorm in Soviet Georgia stands a sad-eyed man in a natty, double-breasted suit--the national paradox of Georgia.

Four months after being swept into the presidency with 87% of the vote, Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia (pronounced ZVEE-AHD GAHM-suh-HER-dee-uh) has provoked opposition that threatens to explode into full-scale civil war.

Famed as an anti-Communist dissident who fought for Georgian independence long before it became fashionable, he stands accused of violating such basic rights as political pluralism and freedom of the press. A clash between armed supporters and opponents early Wednesday morning left five dead.

Even his own countrymen wonder: What went wrong?

Gamsakhurdia’s advisers acknowledge that his fiery style, suitable for a desperate underground revolutionary, is unacceptable for the leader of this republic of 5.5 million people in the Caucasus Mountains of the southwestern Soviet Union.

In a relatively moderate speech this week, for example, Gamsakhurdia referred to his opponents as “collaborators of the empire, putschists who are seeking the overthrow of the lawful government.”

He added ominously: “It’s clear who these people are.”

“I wouldn’t advise him to use such strong language if he asked me,” said Dr. Isai Goldstein, a former activist for Jewish causes and an old colleague of Gamsakhurdia from dissident circles.

Gamsakhurdia, 52, was imprisoned twice for nationalist activism, the first time at age 17. The son of one of Georgia’s best-loved novelists, he speaks several languages and has translated Shakespeare and other prominent English authors into Georgian.

Now that he is on the inside of Tbilisi’s Government House, Gamsakhurdia has shown that good revolutionaries are not always good administrators. After hiring many childhood and party chums for top government posts, he proceeded to fire them after only several weeks, creating new opposition leaders with each friend he put out on the street.

“This is purely psychological,” said Gamsakhurdia’s spokesman, Georgy Burdzhanadze. “When the Communist structure was in place, these ministries and top posts were for life. So they were insulted.”

In substance, Gamsakhurdia’s formal program differs little from what the opposition wants. He promises to reform his republic’s hidebound economy and to drive for full Georgian independence from the Soviet Union. But again and again, his tactics have alienated various segments of the population.

He led Parliament to declare that the autonomous region of Southern Ossetia, which wants to secede from the republic, had been absorbed into Georgia. He allegedly closed opposition newspapers and ordered the detention of political prisoners.

Gamsakhurdia’s critics grew from angry to incensed when he tried to dissolve the Georgian national guard last month at the request of the hard-line Communists who tried to topple Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. They launched outright political war after his police opened fire on anti-government protests Sept. 2.

The opposition, like Gamsakhurdia, puts few restraints on its verbal attacks.

“You can’t forget that the president of Georgia is a psychologically ill person,” Georgy Chanturia, the leader of the opposition National Democratic Party now under arrest, said recently. Former Foreign Minister George Khoshtaria called Gamsakhurdia “a paranoiac.”

“Americans expect that free elections are enough, but remember that Hitler got elected by free elections too,” Chanturia said. “Democracy is the defense of human rights and the free ownership of the media.”

The president’s critics say those who oppose him have been beaten, kidnaped or otherwise intimidated. They say he has also sought to silence newspapers and broadcast media outlets that carry criticism of his administration.

Gamsakhurdia’s domination of Georgian television led to last weekend’s opposition takeover of its studio building. His administration’s attitude toward the press verges on outright hostility.

Correspondents who arrive in Georgia and seek local press cards must sit through a prolonged lecture by Deputy Foreign Minister Nodar Gabashvili, a massive, hunchbacked former professor, on the evils of various Moscow and foreign news organs that cover the republic “non-objectively.”

Gamsakhurdia’s government also propounds a conspiracy theory implicating former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, once Georgia’s Communist Party leader, and other former and current Kremlin leaders in Georgia’s political strife. The conspirators, according to this theory, are whipping up trouble to keep Georgia in the empire.

The opposition has responded in kind, with Chanturia asserting recently that Gamsakhurdia was planning an assassination attempt on himself so that he could blame the opposition.

Nodar Natadze, leader of the opposition Georgian Popular Front, said Gamsakhurdia had been elected on the strength of his demonstrated opposition to communism. However, he said, a real leader would not only tear down the old system but build a new one as well.

“The political mechanisms at work in Georgia are still purely socialist,” Natadze said. “To destroy these mechanisms, you need to be able to build a new mechanism, and for that you need a great degree of political creativity, which requires talents which are lacked by many people.”