Tbilisi, 14 March 2006 (The Messenger - website) - "Georgia is an important player in international politics," stressed Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili at the opening session of the "Strategies for the Future of the Community of Democratic Choice" forum on March 9 in Tbilisi. Saakashvili has made similar statements before regarding Georgia's emergence onto the world stage, but this time the president's claim of political player status came equipped with serious and significant undertones.

The Rose Administration made its first claim regarding Georgia's role in creating a favorable international environment after Georgia actively, and successfully, supported the Ukrainian opposition during that country's Orange Revolution. Consequently, Yushchenko's victory created an important and powerful ally for Georgia in the post-Soviet space - an ally which, initially, declared the same democratic values and Euro-integration goals as Georgia.

For a time after the Orange Revolution it became commonplace to use statistics generated by the "color revolutions" to calculate the results of forthcoming elections in other post-Soviet countries. Immediately a great hope was born in the post-Soviet space that the surge of this political/ideological tsunami would sweep away old, corrupt systems and establish a swath of thriving new democracies.

It was exactly this sentiment that provided such optimism during the Yushchenko-Saakashvili meeting in Borjomi last summer which was responsible for the creation of the Community of Democratic Choice (CDC). This joint declaration, signed on August 12, 2005, opens with a call for the spread of democracy across the entire region: "We, the Presidents of Ukraine and Georgia, express our strong belief that the strengthening of democracy and civil society is one of the main tasks of and prerequisites for the economic development of our countries and our region, which set in Europe, unites the three seas -- Baltic, Black and Caspian -- and is gifted with an enormous potential. Democracy and stability in this region is also the condition for a lasting stability and security for all Europe."

On December 2, 2005 the Community of Democratic Choice (CDC) was officially established in Kyiv, and the organization's charter document was signed by the Presidents of Georgia, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Macedonia, Slovenia and Hungary.

During last week's Tbilisi forum, President Saakashvili stated that the optimistic democratic goals expressed in the Borjomi Declaration are slowly coming to pass and that the CDC itself is becoming more important on a wider international scale, evidenced by - according to Saakashvili - Sweden's stated intention of joining the organization. "We are talking about the unity of the Black Sea-Baltic region, about united, stable, democratic development and Sweden is, of course, a leader in the Baltic region. Sweden's participation will be of special importance which will give additional impulse to the forum," Saakashvili announced in Tbilisi on January 24 at a joint news conference with visiting Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson.

Russia, on the other hand, tells a different story. The Kremlin, which clearly views the CDC as a threat, was quick to label the regime changes in Georgia and Ukraine as "Western tricks" perpetrated to undermine the influence Moscow has traditionally wielded in the so-called "Near Abroad." Russia brought all its resources to bear - political pressure, economic pressure and even, in the case of Uzbekistan, brute force - to staunch the flow of ideals expressed by the color revolutions. Since Kyrgyzstan's "Tulip Revolution" in the spring of 2005 met with mixed success there have been no more color revolutions in the former-Soviet territories. Small attempts to bring about meaningful reform in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan failed allowing Russian analysts to conclude that not only has the color wave indeed subsided, but also to predict a backlash that will effectively re-topple the current Western-oriented regimes in Georgia and in Ukraine.

March 2006 will be a very important month in terms of identifying the predominant color of the post-Soviet space. The first test will be the upcoming elections in Belarus, where Europe's last dictator Alexander Lukashenko has managed to rule uncontested since the breakup of the Soviet Union. It seems likely that he will manage to suppress any protest movements in Minsk, put down the opposition and retain his position. If this scenario indeed comes to pass, it will be a very sad setback for regional democratic development.

Later in the month, on March 26, comes the Ukrainian Rada (parliamentary) elections. If President Yushenko loses and the opposition gains control of the Ukrainian Rada it could lead to grave consequences for Ukrainian democracy. Ukraine is a parliamentary republic and losing control of the Rada will deprive Yushenko of any real power, rendering him a general without an army and virtually ensuring that he will never be reelected. If this scenario indeed comes to pass then it will, in all likelihood, cover the newly sprouted warm Georgian-Ukrainian relations with a killing frost.

On the home front the current Georgian administration is facing a number of serious problems as well. In fact, PR is at such a low point for the Rose Regime that, during the March 9 CDC forum, President Saakashvili was prompted to insist that an "ideological war" is being waged against Georgia. According to the Georgian president, a group of "very influential, very rich, very important forces are engaged in discrediting Georgia and in portraying Georgia as unstable, dangerous, unreliable, non-European, uncivilized, uncultured country."

Saakashvili did not name names in this new "war" and it is not yet clear how much truth there is to his claim and how much of it is an attempt to shift some recent criticism away from the government. However, the accusation resounded with the public and the media is starting to talk and speculations are being made. Seen against the background of the recent worsening of Russo-Georgian relations, some analysts suggest that that this "ideological" attack is designed not only to undermine the country's image, but to ferment a regime change in Georgia.