Shevardnadze has taken much of the credit for Georgia's economic performance under his rule.

In this role, he has met with a number of foreign leaders, including the Presidents of Russia Vladimir Putin and of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze.

It has widely been speculated that Shevardnadze had a hand in his boss's downfall ; he was certainly the obvious candidate to replace Mzhavanadze.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Gamsakhurdia had been forced into exile by January 6, 1992, and the coup leaders invited the former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze to head the post-coup provisional government – the State Council – in March 1992.

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.

The war in the Russian republic of Chechnya on Georgia's northern border caused considerable friction with Russia, which accused Shevardnadze of harbouring Chechen guerrillas and supported Georgian separatists in apparent retaliation.

While Shevardnadze himself was not a conspicuous profiteer, he was accused by many Georgians of shielding corrupt supporters and using his powers of patronage to shore up his own position.

His son Igor Giorgadze was forced into exile after being accused of plotting to assassinate Eduard Shevardnadze.

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

In 1997 there was a trial called the " Trial of the Century " where those accused of involvement with the assassination attempt against Shevardnadze were tried.

Shevardnadze's became the first Soviet republican head to offer his gratitude to the newly elected leader, in turn, Andropov quickly signaled his appreciation and his support for some of the reforms launched by Shevardnadze.

The Soviet leadership wanted to ease Karmal out of politics, but when Najibullah began to complain that he was hampering his plans of National Reconciliation, the Soviet Politburo decided to remove Karmal ; this motion was supported by Andrei Gromyko, Yuli Vorontsov, Eduard Shevardnadze, Anatoly Dobrynin and Viktor Chebrikov.

He appeared on the popular U. S. television program Good Morning America to discuss a speech made two days earlier by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze.

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.

The father of his wife, Nanuli Shevardnadze, was killed by the authorities at the height of the purge.

Like many Soviets, the crimes perpetrated by Joseph Stalin horrified Shevardnadze, and the Soviet government's response to the 1956 Georgian demonstrations shocked him even more.

After initiatsing a successful anti-corruption campaign supported by the Soviet government Shevardnadze was voted-in as Second Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party.

Shevardnadze was appointed to the First Secretaryship of the Georgian Communist Party by the Soviet government with the task of suppressing the grey and black-market capitalism that had grown under Vasil Mzhavanadze's rule.

Shevardnadze rallied up support for his corruption campaigns by establishing the Study of Public Opinion.

A civil war in western Georgia broke out in 1993 between supporters of Gamsakhurdia and Shevardnadze but was ended by Russian intervention on Shevardnadze's side and the death of ex-President Gamsakhurdia on 31 December 1993.

On 23 November Shevardnadze met with the opposition leaders Mikheil Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania to discuss the situation, in a meeting arranged by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

IWPR reported that on 28 November, in an interview held with the press at his home, Shevardnadze " spoke with anger " about a plot by " unspecified Western figures " to bring him down.

* The Future Belongs To Freedom, by Edvard Shevardnadze, translated by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick

Involved in national politics since 1995, he became president on 25 January 2004 after President Eduard Shevardnadze resigned in the November 2003 bloodless " Rose Revolution " led by Saakashvili and his political allies, Nino Burjanadze and Zurab Zhvania.

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.

After an increasingly tense two weeks of demonstrations, Shevardnadze resigned as President on 23 November, to be replaced on an interim basis by parliamentary speaker Nino Burjanadze.

He also released 32 Gamsakhurdia supporters ( political prisoners ) imprisoned by the Shevardnadze government in 1993-94.

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.

One of Burjanadze's first actions was to appeal for national unity and repeal the state of emergency declared by Shevardnadze, in an effort to restore stability to a with a long history of political violence.

Even so, this region was unmanageable by the central government throughout the presidency of Eduard Shevardnadze ( 1992 – 2003 ).

According to statistics released by the Georgian Election Commission, the elections were won by a combination of parties supporting President Eduard Shevardnadze.

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

Shevardnadze failed to have Kitovani ’ s force withdrawn from Abkhazia and the country became involved in a thirteen-month-long war which would end in Georgia ’ s loss of control over most 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.

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.

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.