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.
"It had tremendous reverberations in Georgian society," Rondeli said. "No one before in Georgia saw a government minister telling the others, 'You are a bunch of thieves.' " For a few more weeks, Saakashvili carried on with a high-profile anti-corruption campaign. Yet his relations were poisoned not only with those he accused but also with Shevardnadze. Saakashvili resigned as justice minister, bitterly accusing his former mentor of failing to tackle corruption.
