MOSCOW — As Georgian President-elect Mikheil Saakashvili prepares to take power, the fervent support of vast numbers of citizens counting on him to change their lives may be both a blessing and a curse.
They are people like Nino Kharlampidi, a bus station worker who joined last fall's nonviolent "Rose Revolution" led by the dashing young "Misha," a Western-educated lawyer known for fiery rhetoric and a boyish smile. Fireworks lighted the sky in the capital, Tbilisi, on the November night that longtime President Eduard A. Shevardnadze resigned in the face of the protests, and the 50-year-old Kharlampidi was among those who danced on the street in front of parliament.
"I danced for joy," she said. "Because Misha is the leader, we expect things will get better. I love Misha very much. I love everything about him. He's very strong. He's very strict. He's very trustworthy. He's a person who loves the Georgian people."
Such sentiments translated into a stunning electoral victory for Saakashvili in Jan. 4 presidential balloting in the beautiful but poverty-stricken former Soviet republic. Official returns showed the charismatic pro-Western reformer winning 96% of the vote against five rivals. That level of support is rarely seen in a free election anywhere in the world, but foreign monitors have said they believed the election was honest.
Expectations may now be so high that they can only be crushed.
"Until now, he achieved everything," said Alexander Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies. "Now he faces the most difficult task of his life. To make many people happy is not easy."
Saakashvili, 36, built his enormous popularity on political skills, risk-taking and a reputation as a fighter against corruption in this nation of 5 million perched between the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains.
"This is your victory. I have not won the election. You, my people, you have won the election," he told cheering supporters on election night. His inauguration is set for Jan. 25.
"His oratorical style is quite emotional, hot-tempered and populist," said Ghia Nodia, director of the Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development, a Tbilisi think tank. "But I personally think that all Mikheil Saakashvili's populism in his speeches is very carefully calculated. He knows exactly what he is doing. And he knows that in order to be popular in Georgia today, he needs to adhere to this style of talking in public."
A handsome, slightly heavyset man with black hair, Saakashvili can look like a corporate executive when wearing a suit, though a leather jacket and more casual clothes allow him to fit smoothly on Georgia's sometimes tough streets.
His primarily Orthodox Christian land is still a macho, traditional world in many ways -- a place where emotion sometimes matters as much as logic, and where a touch of mysticism evokes feelings for the nation's many centuries of rich history.
Saakashvili's ability to move effortlessly between the worlds of Western elites and the disenfranchised of his homeland accounts for much of his success.
He earned a law degree at Columbia University on a U.S. scholarship program created for citizens of the former Soviet Union, studied human rights law at George Washington University and worked briefly at a New York law firm. He lived in an apartment near Central Park, regularly attending Knicks games and performances of the Metropolitan Opera.
In 1995, he was recruited by a key associate of Shevardnadze to return to Georgia as part of a group of young reformers with no roots in the old Communist elite. In parliamentary elections later that year, the ruling party gave him a choice slot on its candidates list, which in Georgia's system guaranteed him a seat. In parliament, he set about revising the country's judicial and police systems.
Saakashvili was "a kind of meteor" who "came into Georgian politics as a person willing to conduct very serious reforms," said Elene Tevdoradze, a member of parliament from the party led by interim President Nino Burjanadze, who helped lead the November protests.
Shevardnadze appointed Saakashvili justice minister in 2000. The defining moment of his career came the next year, when Saakashvili created a sensation at a Cabinet meeting by accusing some of his colleagues of blatant corruption for building palatial homes they could not possibly afford on their modest government salaries. The security minister and Tbilisi police chief were among those he targeted by brandishing photos of the new construction.
That speech "really made him famous," said Akaki Gogichaishvili, a reporter with Tbilisi's independent Rustavi 2 television.
