1 - Mikheil Saakashvili was elected president of Georgia after a bloodless revolution in 2003. A graduate of Columbia Law School in New York, fluent in four languages and in the values of free-market democracies, he was deemed a savior for the post-Soviet landscape, as if he had been conjured by a committee of Washington think tanks and European human rights groups.

2 - Mr. Saakashvili has been a staunch ally of the United States in the volatile Caucasus region, dispatching troops to Iraq to show his support. He vowed to crack down on corruption, and introduced reforms that brought foreign investment and growth to one of the region's poorest countries.

3 - He also pledged to restore federal rule to three regions that had been essentially independent since the fighting that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union -- Ajaria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He found quick success in Ajaria, a Black Sea region on the border with Turkey. After initial saber-rattling that alarmed many around the region, Mr. Saakashvili in 2005 tried a softer approaching, offering a package of autonomy and incentives to South Ossetia. His overtures were rejected.

4 - By 2007, discontent was rising among the opposition, who pointed to what they called renewed corruption and to the economic inequality that accompanied the country's new growth. The unhappiness boiled over into six days of street protests in November, which were brought to a close by a violent police crackdown as Mr. Saakashvili declared a state of emergency. As critics wondered whether he was showing a new dictatorial side, he turned around and ordered snap elections, and won a new five-year term in January 2008 with 52 percent of the vote.

Source: The New York Time