In an open letter to Shevardnadze, dated April 19, 1992, Gamsakhurdia claimed that " my so-called confession was necessitated ... if there had been no ' confession ' and my release from the prison in 1979 had not taken place, then there would not have been a rise of the national movement.

He reached an accommodation with President Eduard Shevardnadze, who appeared to have preferred to live with a semi-independent Ajaria rather than risk another civil war.

The elections followed the annulment of the November 2003 legislative elections, which were widely believed to have been rigged by the former President, Eduard Shevardnadze.

Initially it was led by a triumvirate of Jaba Ioseliani, Tengiz Sigua and Tengiz Kitovani, but it was soon chaired by Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Communist leader who returned to Tbilisi in March 1992.

Tengiz Kitovani () ( born June 9, 1938 ) is a retired Georgian politician and military commander with high-profile involvement in the Georgian Civil War early in the 1990s when he commanded the National Guard of Georgia and served as a Defense Minister until being gradually sidelined by Eduard Shevardnadze who had earlier been invited to lead the nation after a successful coup d ' etat launched by Kitovani and his allies against President Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

As a result of the power-sharing arrangement that was eventually struck between Ioseliani, Kitovani, Sigua and Shevardnadze, Kitovani remained the commander of the National Guard and retained a considerable influence on decision making.

In May 1992, Shevardnadze appointed Kitovani Minister of Defence in an effort to bring the National Guard under central control.

However, both Kitovani and Ioseliani were reluctant to concede power to Shevardnadze and tended to engage in unilateral actions, and in doing so frequently conflicted with each other.

Later, Shevardnadze would accuse Kitovani of provoking an armed conflict in Abkhazia, claiming that Kitovani disavowed his order and advance with his military to Sukhumi.

Kitovani however blamed Shevardnadze for preventing him from following up an offensive on Sukhumi with an attack on the Abkhaz stronghold in Gudauta, home to a Russian military base which supplied the secessionist forces with instructors and munitions.

Shevardnadze ’ s successor as President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, has also accused Kitovani of being a " Russian agent " and blamed him for the loss of Abkhazia.

During the war in Abkhazia, Kitovani developed a power centre rivalling Shevardnadze ’ s and on several occasions challenged Shevardnadze, now Head of State, on defence matters, suggesting that he should be responsible only for foreign policy.

After the pro-Gamsakhurdia rebellion had been quashed with Russian aid by December 1993, Shevardnadze was able to increasingly consolidate his power and deprive both Kitovani and Ioseliani of influence over national security policy.

Since early 2000s, Kitovani has lived in Moscow from where he harshly criticized the Shevardnadze government on several occasions.

Later that year, Kitovani accused Shevardnadze of being behind the 2002 assassination of Kakhi Asatiani, a businessman and former soccer star.

Many accuse Eduard Shevardnadze ’ s government of the initiation of senseless hostilities, and then of ineffective conduct of the war and post-war diplomacy.

In February 2002, he responded scandalously to the mysterious suicide of Nugzar Sajaia, Shevardnadze ’ s close ally and an influential Chairman of Georgia ’ s National Security Council, making allegations that Sajaia was a homosexual and had ordered the 2001 murder of journalist Giorgi Sanaia.

Shevardnadze downplayed the criticism, attributing Merabishvili ’ s statement to the latter's youth and inexperience.

He was energetically involved in the protest movement following the November 2003 parliamentary elections which led to Shevardnadze ’ s resignation in the bloodless Rose Revolution.

He was sacked, in 2002, without explanation, though it appears that he had intended to resign in protest against the policies of Shevardnadze ’ s increasingly corrupted government ( as the Minister of Justice Mikheil Saakashvili did a year before ).

The process of legal " rehabilitation " ( exoneration ) of the victims of the 1920s repressions began under Mikhail Gorbachev ’ s policy of Glasnost (" openness ") and was completed in 25 May 1992 decree issued by the State Council of the Republic of Georgia chaired by Eduard Shevardnadze.

After the fall of Gamsakhurdia, Chanturia was in moderate opposition to Eduard Shevardnadze ’ s government in 1992-1994.

After Gamsakhurdia ’ s fall, he became Prime Minister in the Georgian interim government ( Military Council, later transformed into the State Council ) which was joined by Eduard Shevardnadze ) on 6 January 1992.

Shevardnadze has been accused of rejecting the offer by the hijackers ’ parents to negotiate with their sons the release of the hostages.

The Adjara crisis refers to a political crisis in Georgia ’ s Adjaran Autonomous Republic, then led by Aslan Abashidze, who refused to obey the central authorities after President Eduard Shevardnadze ’ s ousting during the Rose Revolution of November 2003.

Adjaran leader Aslan Abashidze, being in strong opposition to the Rose Revolution, declared the state of emergency immediately after Eduard Shevardnadze ’ s ousting on November 23, 2003.

Later, he distanced himself from Abashidze, remaining, however, in opposition to Eduard Shevardnadze ’ s government.

The idea to establish the NRP began to emerge during the time when Eduard Shevardnadze was still President and his Citizens ’ Union of Georgia ( CUG ) was an influential force on the political stage of the country.

This triggered fierce public discontent nation-wide, which eventually resulted in the toppling of Shevardnadze ’ s regime in the Rose Revolution.

In September 2003, former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze made a last minute decision not to sign this agreement with the Vatican after a protest rally took place in Tbilisi, provoked from and backed by the Georgian Orthodox Church.

However, as early as 1988, then-Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze had discussed the possibility of a withdrawal from Cam Ranh Bay, and concrete naval reductions were realised by 1990.

Eduard Ambrosis dze Shevardnadze ( ; born 25 January 1928 ) is a former Soviet minister of foreign affairs, and later, Georgian statesman from the height to the end of the Cold War.

Shevardnadze anti-corruption campaign continued until he resigned from his office as First Secretary.

Original CIA file on Shevardnadze, seized from the former United States Embassy in Tehran

There was another problem facing Shevardnadze during the 1978 demonstrations, some leading Abkhaz intellectuals were writing to Leonid Brezhnev in the hope that he would let the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic secede from Georgia and merge into the Russian SFSR.

During the late 1980s, as the Soviet Union descended into crisis, Gorbachev and Shevardnadze became increasingly estranged from each other over policy differences.

After graduation, while on internship in the New York law firm of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler in early 1995, Saakashvili was approached by Zurab Zhvania, an old friend from Georgia who was working on behalf of President Eduard Shevardnadze to enter politics.

In 1995, Burjanadze was elected to the Parliament of Georgia for the Union of Citizens of Georgia ( UCG ) then chaired by the President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze and supported financially by her father Anzor Burjanadze, a wealthy businessman .. She first chaired the Parliamentary Committee for Constitutional Law from 1998 to 1999, and the Parliamentary Committee for International Relations from 2000 to 2001.

In September 2001, Saakashvili resigned from Shevardnadze's government and party on the grounds that corruption had penetrated to the very centre of the Georgian government and that Shevardnadze lacked the will to deal with it.

First signs of revival can be seen from the 1970s, when Eduard Shevardnadze, then secretary of the Georgian SSR's Communist Party, adopted a more tolerant stance, and new Patriarch Ilia II could from 1977 renovate derelict churches, and even build new ones.

On April 14, 2003, Kmara made its first major appearance, staging a march of some 200 students from the Tbilisi State University to the State Chancellery, chanting their slogan " kmara " and demanding resignation of the " corrupt government " and President Shevardnadze.

Because of Yanayev's more conservative views, Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduard Shevardnadze resigned from office to protest against the increasing numbers of conservatives in top political offices.

He resigned from his post as First Secretary on September 28, 1972, and was replaced by his ambitious Interior Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze.

Despite criticism from the opposition, Eduard Shevardnadze, President of Georgia, refused to deploy troops against Abkhazia.

On August 29, 1995 there was an attempt on the life of, the then president, Eduard Shevardnadze after which Giorgadze was removed from his post.

The Georgian Communist Party chief, Eduard Shevardnadze, called for the deployment of an élite Soviet special unit Alpha Group from Moscow.

Zviad Gamsakhurdia's supporters, the so-called Zviadists staged mass demonstrations against the post-coup government led by the former Communist leader Eduard Shevardnadze in various parts of Georgia and organized armed groups which prevented the government forces from taking control of Samegrelo, the ex-President's home province.