TBILISI, Georgia, May 5 -- When President Bush arrives here next week, he can expect a rapturous reception from the Georgian public and its young, restless leader, whose Rose Revolution swept a tired and corrupt government from power in November 2003 and became a model for revolts in other former Soviet republics.
Bush's visit is "confirmation that Georgia is a front-runner in the dissemination of democracy," President Mikheil Saakashvili, 37, told a group of students here this week.
In an interview with two American reporters over dinner later in the day, he elaborated on that theme: "No one expected that a government in this part of the world could perform. You can argue about the pluses and minuses of the government, but no one can argue that this government isn't delivering."
After the street revolt, called the Rose Revolution for the flowers that protesters carried, Saakashvili was elected to office with more than 90 percent of the vote. With enthusiastic support from the United States, he has pushed through one initiative after another in an effort to remake the broken state he inherited from former president Eduard Shevardnadze.
But Saakashvili's overwhelming dominance of politics has led to charges from the country's opposition -- themselves Rose Revolutionaries who stayed out of government -- that Saakashvili is so taken with his preeminence that the revolution's democratic promise is being undermined.
"There are no checks and balances in this country," said David Gamkrelidze, a onetime conspirator with Saakashvili and now head of the New Right Party, the only formal opposition group in Parliament. "Saakashvili has authoritarian instincts. He cannot tolerate any criticism. And I hope that President Bush, in private, will speak to him about transparency, about democratic control, about the rule of law."
Bush will address a mass rally on Tbilisi's Liberty Square. Georgian officials expect a crowd of up to 100,000, a rare mass welcome for an American president who is viewed with hostility in many parts of the world. According to a recent opinion poll here, 72 percent of Georgians approve of Bush's visit. The 7 percent who expressed a negative opinion are people who complain about everything, said Saakashvili, who studied at George Washington University.
Along Tbilisi's Rustaveli Prospect, pavement is being resurfaced, walls are being washed and run-down facades are being repainted in pastel blues and pinks before the Bush motorcade passes. For Saakashvili, these are not cosmetic changes -- the Potemkin village of the opposition's gibes -- but visible evidence for Bush of a countrywide transformation.
"After President Bush leaves, I will take a brush in my hand and show that this facade painting is a continuous process," Saakashvili said. "People forget. They forget that Georgia was an occupied and enslaved country. We are creating a state."
The country still faces major challenges, including dealing with two breakaway regions supported by Russia, Georgia's northern neighbor and longtime overseer. Russia still has two military bases here; officials in Moscow and Tbilisi are negotiating a timetable for their removal.
Between courses of chicken, cheese pie, kebab, fried fish and meat dumplings, Saakashvili listed his administration's achievements in the last 17 months.
With a budget that has jumped from $350 million annually to $1.9 billion, the government has embarked on a $200 million road-building project to link all the major population centers.
Saakashvili said he expected Georgia's chronic power shortages to be resolved by next year, as new power stations come on line and old facilities are refurbished. By 2008, he said, every school in the country will have Internet access.
The country's highway police, who routinely extorted bribes from drivers, were fired and replaced with a force that even the opposition admits is not corrupt . The army, little better than a militia two years ago, has been professionalized, and more than 800 Georgian soldiers are serving in Iraq.
A new nationwide educational testing system has been developed with the aim of fostering a meritocracy and rooting out the practice of students bribing their way into university. The government has announced plans to abolish 90 percent of all licensing requirements this month to increase small business start-ups.
Many welcome the changes. Tamara Buzishvili, a 17-year-old student at Tbilisi State University, said she believed that when she graduates she will be able to "get a job without high connections," something she said she couldn't have imagined two years ago.
"The investment climate is much better," said David Mapley, a British investment fund manager. "We recently brought in some multibillion dollar companies, and they liked what they saw."
Still, many Georgians are impatient for more, and the president's political standing has fallen from its post-revolution heights. "The changes are superficial, and it's still one-man rule," said Akaki Kulijanashivili, 42, a philosophy professor who took part in the revolt.
Some former allies of Saakashvili say he seems increasingly unwilling to respect dissent. They pointed to a government practice of jailing allegedly corrupt government officials and then pardoning them when they paid millions of dollars, all without any judicial proceeding. Saakashvili said the practice had ended.
