Georgia
October 2012 |With recent polls suggesting that a large share of voters had not made up their mind, the prisoner abuse scandal clearly served as a vote swinging factor, as it led to a confidence crisis in what has previously been the backbone of Saakashvili's popularity, namely addressing institutional corruption and moving Georgia away from its Soviet past towards closer integration with the West. This perception - which suffered a major setback after the brief war with Russia in August 2008, with Russian troops still present in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - was compromised with the prisoner abuse scandal, serving as a stark reminder of Georgia's inability to shake off its authoritarian past entirely.
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