GEORGIA: Both Russia and the US will be watching developments in Georgia as both have their own interests there, writes Daniel McLaughlin in Moscow
President Edward Shevardnadze's resignation yesterday sparked celebrations across Georgia, raising hopes among an embattled nation of an end to more than a decade of poverty, corruption and bloody war.
The promise that the former Soviet foreign minister embodied on his return from Moscow in 1992 - that he could not only pacify a conflict-riven country but lead it to stability and free-market prosperity - had long since died.
The ebullient Mr Shevardnadze, who with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev helped free the Eastern bloc from Moscow's shackles, had become an anachronism assailed by a new generation calling time on his efforts to drag Georgia from the economic mire.
This month's parliamentary elections, which international observers said were rigged, were merely the spark that Mr Shevardnadze's opponents needed to ignite deep discontent among ordinary Georgians who complain of a lack of basic utilities, spiralling unemployment, and meagre wages and pensions.
While almost two-thirds of Georgians live in poverty, health and education systems crumble and light and heating are intermittent, some of Mr Shevardnadze's family and many of his supporters enjoy lavish lifestyles.
The populist politics of Mikhail Saakashvili tap this deep well of dissatisfaction with Mr Shevardnadze (75), and he has promised a purge of corrupt officials if he takes power. Before establishing his United National Movement party, he resigned as justice minister in protest at shady practices by government members.
Mr Saakashvili (35), a pro-Western lawyer who studied at Columbia University in New York, is an attractive figure to the many Georgians who want to see the old political guard swept away.
And in Nino Burdzhanadze (39), the sophisticated lawyer who declared herself acting president on Saturday, he has an articulate and able ally, one of the very few women to rise to political prominence across the former Soviet Union.
These two are in the vanguard of a new wave of politicians jostling the old Soviet-era elite, and both are eloquent, charismatic and bright enough to woo not only vast swathes of their own people but also Moscow and the West.
They may have to work harder to win round or at least pacify influential regional leaders like Aslan Abashidze, who backed Mr Shevardnadze and bused people in from his Adzhara province to rally for the president. He has claimed the opposition is trying to destabilise his Black Sea region, and announced a state of emergency there last night.
Georgians know that with the promise of the opposition's victory comes an implicit threat - that of bloodshed and potential civil war - which are very real and grim possibilities to people who watched their country engulfed by internecine conflict in the 1990s.
The decade began with a chaotic election, when Georgians voted overwhelmingly against the communist party, sweeping it from power and installing former political prisoner Zviad Gamsakhurdia as leader. But accusations that he was imposing a dictatorship followed a fortnight of fighting that saw him ousted from the presidency.
Early in 1992, Mr Shevardnadze returned to try and unite a country that was on the brink of disintegration. The province of South Ossetia was fighting to join Russia, and the Black Sea region of Abkhazia had declared independence.
In the summer of that year, Mr Shevardnadze managed to put down a revolt by supporters of the ousted Gamsakhurdia and clinch a ceasefire agreement in South Ossetia, but the region's status is still unresolved and is a haven for criminal groups.
The sharpest separatist thorn in Mr Shevardnadze's side was Abkahzia. Mr Shevardnadze sent troops into Abkhazia in August 1992, after a group of Georgian officials were kidnapped there.
Some 10,000 people died as the Abkhaz militia battled the Georgian military, and drove them out of the region by September 1993.
The Abkhaz forces received support from Russia, a move that a furious Tbilisi said was intended to maintain Moscow's influence in the region by prolonging instability in the Caucasus.
The episode soured traditionally cordial relations between Russia and Georgia, and set the tone for a decade of mistrust of Moscow's intentions by Mr Shevardnadze. He blamed Georgia's huge northern neighbour for hampering talks with Abkhazia and propping up the region's regime.
He also berated Russia's gas and electricity firms for turning the screw on energy-dependent Georgia, exerting pressure over unpaid bills by threatening to cut supplies and occasionally actually flicking off the switch.
Moscow, in turn, has accused Georgia of turning a blind eye to the presence of Chechen rebels in the remote Pankisi Gorge and has even bombed Georgian territory.
But despite Mr Shevardnadze's occasional enmity towards Moscow, it was Russia's foreign minister Igor Ivanov who helped broker his resignation yesterday.
Perhaps fearful of potential US interference in what it still considers its sphere of influence, Russia was quick to dispatch its top diplomat to Tbilisi.
Mr Ivanov also held discussions with leading opposition figures, sending a clear signal around the world that Moscow is still the main foreign player in the Caucasus.
It was a timely signal, with US interest in the region on the rise, and Mr Shevardnadze always keen to restate Georgia's ambition to join NATO.
Washington has angered the Kremlin by sending a contingent of military instructors to Georgia, to teach its underfunded and ill-equipped army how to deal with potential terrorist threats, particularly from the nearby Chechens.
It was a severe blow to Mr Shevardnadze when the US State Department made a blunt and damning assessment of this month's elections, giving opposition demands for a new vote greater credibility.
Washington is watching events in Georgia very closely, knowing that unrest could threaten the huge investment in time, money and diplomacy that it has poured into a major pipeline bringing Caspian Sea oil to Turkey and the West via Georgia. It is seen as a key part of a US drive to wean itself off energy from the volatile Middle East.
Whoever leads Georgia in the post-Shevardnadze era, they know they will be scrutinised not only by their own people, but by old master Moscow and Tbilisi's new friends in the White House.