Mikheil Saakashvili

Biography

Mikheil Saakashvili was born in 1967 in Soviet Georgia. He studied international law at Kyiv University, graduating in 1992, then took a law master's degree at Columbia in 1994 and further courses in Washington and Strasbourg. While working at a New York law firm he was recruited into Georgian politics by Zurab Zhvania and entered parliament in 1995.

He served as Eduard Shevardnadze's justice minister in 2000-2001 before breaking with him and founding the United National Movement. His charge that the November 2003 parliamentary election had been rigged set off the Rose Revolution, and he won the presidency in January 2004 with about 96 percent of the vote.

As president he replaced the police force, cut taxes and bureaucracy and sought NATO and EU integration, but he was accused of abuses including police violence and prison torture. After protests in late 2007 were dispersed by force, he resigned and won an early election in January 2008; months later Georgia lost a short war with Russia. His party lost power in 2012 and he left the country after his term ended in 2013.

In Ukraine he was governor of Odesa Oblast in 2015-2016, lost and later regained Ukrainian citizenship, and led the National Reform Council from 2020. Sentenced in absentia in Georgia, he was arrested on his return in October 2021 and has since been held, largely in hospital.