A former Communist bureaucrat and enterprise manager, Patsatsia led the Georgian cabinet, with Eduard Shevardnadze as Georgia's Head of State, during the years of civil strife and economic crisis.
[4] Zugdidi was the principal powerbase of the Gamsakhurdia loyalists – the "Zviadists" – who continued their resistance, frequently with arms in hands, to the new regime and its undisciplined paramilitary groups.
Shevardnadze's promotion of Patsatsia, a Zugdidi native with extensive ties with the local community, was an attempt to appease Gamsakhurdia's supporters.
[2] The two years of Patsatsia's tenure were marked by an increasingly chaotic political environment, violent power struggles, amilitary setback in the secessionist war in Abkhazia, a full-scale civil war with the pro-Gamsakhurdia forces, and severe economic crisis, followed by controversial economic and military agreements with Russia.
[5] Patsatsia resigned on October 5, 1995, to stand for the parliamentary election, in which he ran as a non-party candidate from Zugdidi and won a majoritarian seat for the next four years.