United National MovementBurjanadze-DemocratsUnion of National ForcesUnity[1]Supported by: Government of Georgia Mikheil SaakashviliNino BurjanadzeZurab Zhvania Eduard Shevardnadze Aslan Abashidze The Rose Revolution or Revolution of Roses (Georgian: ვარდების რევოლუცია, romanized: vardebis revolutsia) was a nonviolent change of power that occurred in Georgia in November 2003.

The event was brought about by widespread protests over the disputed parliamentary elections and culminated in the resignation of President Eduard Shevardnadze, which marked the end of Soviet-era leadership in the country.

The revolution derives its name from the climactic moment, when demonstrators led by Mikheil Saakashvili stormed the Parliament session with red roses in hand.

Consisting of twenty days of protests from 3 to 23 November 2003, the Revolution triggered new presidential and parliamentary elections in Georgia, which brought the National Movement–Democrats coalition to the power.

[5] The death of Zurab Zhvania in uncertain circumstances and the withdrawal of Nino Burjanadze into opposition eventually established the United National Movement as the single ruling party.

[7] The defections continued for the next two years, and left the Citizens' Union of Georgia as a far weaker party with support clustered in a few regions, and a leadership notorious for accumulating wealth illegally through their positions in government.

The collapse of the Citizens' Union of Georgia and more apparent public discontent with Shevardnadze allowed for the formation of numerous new parties after 2000.

Two of the most important were the Georgian Young Lawyers Association and the Liberty Institute, both of which were active in the promotion of human rights and freedom of information legislation before the Rose Revolution.

Georgia's weak economy allowed these NGOs, who were often partially foreign funded, to pay decent salaries that would not have been available in working for the Georgian state.

[15] Before the Rose Revolution, a large network of NGOs with foreign financial support already existed in the country that could later coordinate protest.

Instead, foreign states and organizations gave financial assistance to NGOs and opposition parties within Georgia, worsening the desperate budget situation of the Shevardnadze government.

The U.S. and European governments gave the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) the funds to support foreign election observers.

The Open Society Institute (OSI), funded by George Soros, supported Mikheil Saakashvili and a network of pro-democratic organizations.

[16] An important factor in the Rose Revolution was the independent television channel Rustavi-2, which served as an ally for the opposition movement for years.

[17] Georgia's broad Freedom of Information law gave media outlets the legal protection to criticize the government, making it a leader amongst the former Eastern Bloc.

Upwards of seven thousand student-led protestors, many mobilized by the Liberty Institute NGO, amassed outside the headquarters and demanded the resignation of the Shevardnadze government.

[20] Importantly, this event triggered the defection of Mikheil Saakashvili and the abdication of Zurab Zhvania from their positions in the Citizens' Union of Georgia, eventually leading to the formation of the National Movement and United Democrats opposition parties.

This included the repeated airing of Bringing Down a Dictator, a film portraying the fall of Slobodan Milošević in the nonviolent Serbian revolution.

[22] Rustavi-2 would eventually be the network to commission and broadcast the exit poll results of the 2003 parliamentary election, which found Saakashvili's National Movement party victorious over the pro-Shevardnadze bloc.

[27] Social conditions also further deteriorated, with over half of the population finding itself under the poverty line, creating even greater dissatisfaction with the Shevardnadze administration.

At stake were 235 seats in parliament of which 135 would be decided by a nationwide proportional party-list system and 85 were "majoritarian" contests in which a winner would be determined in each of Georgia's 85 electoral districts.

Saakashvilli and the United Opposition accepted ISFED's PVT as "official" results, and urged Georgians to demonstrate against Shevardnadze's government and engage in nonviolent civil disobedience against the authorities.

In mid-November, massive antigovernmental demonstrations started in the central streets of Tbilisi, soon involving almost all major cities and towns of Georgia in a concerted campaign of civil resistance.

Shevardnadze's government was backed by Aslan Abashidze, the semi-separatist leader of the autonomous Adjara region, who sent thousands of his supporters to hold a pro-governmental counter-demonstration in Tbilisi.

In the evening of November 23 (St George's Day in Georgia), Shevardnadze met with the opposition leaders Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania to discuss the situation, in a meeting arranged by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

On March 28, 2004, new parliamentary elections were held, with a large majority won by the Saakashvili-supporting National Movement - Democrats, and a minority representation of the Rightist Opposition.

[citation needed] Many countries watched Georgia transition from an autocracy to a democracy, but the key players were primarily Russia and the United States.

[32] A significant source of funding for the Rose Revolution was the network of foundations and NGOs associated with Hungarian-American billionaire financier George Soros.

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies reports the case of a former Georgian parliamentarian who alleges that in the three months prior to the Rose Revolution, "Soros spent $42 million ramping-up for the overthrow of Shevardnadze.

However, one cannot end one's analysis with the revolution [only] and one clearly sees that, afterwards, the Soros Foundation and the NGOs were integrated into power.The amount of international involvement created a variety of conspiracy theories.