Ivane "Vano" Merabishvili (; born 15 April 1968) is a Georgian politician and 9th Prime Minister of Georgia from 4 July to 25 October 2012. A former NGO activist, he became directly involved in Georgia's politics in 1999 and emerged as one of the government's most influential members after the 2003 Rose Revolution, especially as Georgia's Minister of Internal Affairs (18 December 2004 – 4 July 2012). Education and NGO career Merabishvili was born in the largely Georgian Roman Catholic village of Ude in what is now Samtskhe-Javakheti region in south Georgia, then a Soviet republic. He graduated from the Georgian Technical University in 1992 with a degree from the Faculty of Mining. After his schooling he held several positions at the Technical University and at the Institute of Agriculture of Georgia before becoming a president of the Association for Protection of Landowners' Rights in 1995 and a co-founder of the Liberty Institute in 1996. Member of Parliament Merabishvili's direct involvement with politics began in November 1999 when he was elected to the Parliament of Georgia on the party ticket of the Union of Citizens of Georgia (UCG), chaired by then-President Eduard Shevardnadze. Merabishvili was a member of an influential and vocal, yet small, group of the UCG faction, known as “reformers” led by Zurab Zhvania and Mikheil Saakashvili and which called for more radical and Western-oriented political reforms. In April 2001, with a simmering conflict in the UCG, Merabishvili, then a chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Economic Policy, became the first and, at that time, the only leading member of the party to openly criticise Shevardnadze. In an interview with the Washington Post, Merabisvhili stated Shevardnadze was “tired” and lacked the political will to fight corruption. Shevardnadze downplayed the criticism, attributing Merabishvili’s statement to the latter's youth and inexperience. In 2002, Merabishvili became Secretary General of Mikheil Saakashvili’s newly formed opposition National Movement. He was energetically involved in the protest movement following the November 2003 parliamentary elections which led to Shevardnadze’s resignation in the bloodless Rose Revolution. Government minister After Saakashvili's ascent to the presidency, Merabishvili served as the National Security Advisor and Secretary of the National Security Council from January until June 2004 when he was appointed as Minister of State Security. In December 2004, the Ministry of State Security was merged with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of which Merabishvili was placed in charge. As interior