Why This Ex-President Ended up Stateless

The leader who waged a high-profile fight to set two post-Soviet countries on a Western path has now lost his job and the citizenship of both nations. Mikheil Saakashvili, former president of Georgia and former governor of Odessa in Ukraine, is now stateless. His story shows how difficult it is in the post-Soviet space for even Western darlings such as Georgia and Ukraine to shed their legacy of corruption and authoritarianism.

Saakashvili's reforms following Georgia's 2003 Rose Revolution are now the subject of books and countless scholarly articles. Ruthless deregulation and a series of anti-corruption moves resulted in quick economic growth, culminating at 12 percent of gross domestic product in 2007, mostly at the expense of the informal economy. Georgia rocketed upwards in all sorts of economic freedom rankings such as the World Bank's ease of doing business.