Near death in jail, Georgia’s former president defies its current one

EIGHTEEN YEARS ago this month, the 35-year-old Mikheil Saakashvili, an American-educated Georgian politician, led the first “colour revolution” in the countries of the former Soviet Union. When he subsequently became president he turned around the corrupt and failing republic, although he was also much criticised for hogging and abusing power. Now he is in prison fighting for his life after seven weeks on hunger-strike.Mr Saakashvili stepped down in 2013 after his party lost an election, surrendering power to Bidzina Ivanishvili, a reclusive billionaire who founded and still controls the ruling Georgian Dream party. Mr Ivanishvili chased him out of the country and stripped him of his citizenship. Hated by the Kremlin, which fought a short war with Georgia in 2008, Mr Saakashvili spent the next eight years in Ukraine, where he became prominent.