The nationalist dissident who became Georgia's first democratically elected president
"All my life I was in the opposition and fought against the government. Now I am the government": said in an interview after becoming chairman of the newly elected Supreme Council, 1990.
Georgian philologist and dissident, son of the celebrated writer Konstantine Gamsakhurdia. In 1977 he co-founded the Georgian Helsinki Group with Merab Kostava, exposing Soviet human rights abuses to the world, and was repeatedly imprisoned. In April 1989, as co-leader of the Independence Committee, he organized mass peaceful demonstrations and hunger strikes in Tbilisi; the Soviet military's bloody crackdown on them decisively radicalized Georgian opinion toward independence. Leading the Round Table-Free Georgia coalition, he won the first multiparty elections in 1990 and was elected Georgia's first president in May 1991 with 87% of the vote, only to be overthrown in an armed coup seven months later, flee to Chechnya, and die under disputed circumstances in western Georgia in December 1993.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1954Founded the underground youth group Gorgasliani
- 1963–1977Lecturer in English, Tbilisi State University; researcher, Institute of Literature, Georgian Academy of Sciences
- 1977–1979Co-founded Georgian Helsinki Group; arrested, imprisoned, released after public recantation
- 1988–1990Co-chair, Society of St. Ilia the Righteous; co-leader of the Independence Committee
- 1990–1991Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia
- 1991–1992President of the Republic of Georgia
Related historical events
Concentrating power and civil conflict in the new state
Gamsakhurdia pursued independence through elections and parliamentary institutions within the Soviet system. Elected chairman of the Supreme Council in October 1990, he led a government that held an independence referendum on 31 March 1991: 90 percent of the electorate voted, and 98 percent supported restoring independence. In April, he presented a declaration of independence to parliament, which adopted it unanimously, with all 227 members in favor. In the May presidential election, 83.4 percent of eligible voters participated and 86.5 percent of those voting supported him. The new presidency, however, carried broad powers, including a legislative veto, authority to declare martial law, and appointment powers over the prime minister, senior judges, prosecutor general and military commanders.
The government sought to control armed organizations outside parliament, while disputes over the National Guard and military appointments widened divisions within the governing camp. In August 1991, Gamsakhurdia placed the National Guard under the Interior Ministry and dismissed its commander, Tengiz Kitovani. Kitovani left Tbilisi with troops, and Prime Minister Tengiz Sigua and others joined the opposition. Opposition demonstrations intensified in September, and civilians were injured when police dispersed a protest. The government arrested opposition figures and suspended political parties under a state of emergency in November. In a December 1991 report, Helsinki Watch documented restrictions on press and assembly, political imprisonment, torture and mistreatment of detainees, and government support for or indifference to armed attacks on South Ossetians seeking independence. These were the human-rights organization's findings; it opposed overthrowing an elected government by force and said it could not assess the human-rights commitments of the loosely organized opposition.
Fighting between Kitovani's rebel forces and units loyal to Gamsakhurdia centered on the siege of parliament in Tbilisi from 22 December 1991 to 6 January 1992. Gamsakhurdia was overthrown and left for Chechnya; a Military Council led by Kitovani, Jaba Ioseliani and Sigua took control of the capital. In 2005, Georgia's parliament characterized the events as an unconstitutional armed coup. The coup triggered the subsequent civil war. The account of the crisis must therefore include both the concentration of power and repression under Gamsakhurdia's government and the armed overthrow carried out by his opponents.