An exiled ex-president plans a comeback in Georgia

IN THE GARISH style of a video game, the former Soviet republic of Georgia’s richest man is running around in a suit, knocking out golden coins with his head, when a rotund figure pops out of a chimney, destroying the oligarch and triggering “game over”. The victor—in the mock game—is Mikheil Saakashvili, independent Georgia’s best-known ex-president. He hopes to become Georgia’s prime minister in an election on October 31st.

Mr Saakashvili led the “Rose revolution” of 2003 that propelled Georgians from post-Soviet dourness to pro-European modern governance, cracking down on petty corruption and setting up reputable state institutions. But he then spectacularly plummeted from grace. Now he is conducting a re-election campaign from exile in Ukraine, through his United National Movement (UNM). Stripped of his Georgian citizenship, he has been indicted on several criminal charges by the current government, dominated by the Georgian Dream party led by Bidzina Ivanishvili, the country’s richest oligarch, who lives in an emerald-green glass palace overlooking Tbilisi, the capital. Mr Saakashvili, who has been sentenced to nine years in jail in absentia, would doubtless return if UNM were to win, though the odds are against it.