Apt lesson for our tyrants
But, apparently, power corrupts. During the 12 years that he has served as president of Georgia, he has come to epitomise political corruption and misrule.
History will not condemn him as harshly as it has done his fellow Georgian, Josef Djugashvilli Stalin, under whose tyranny millions of dissidents were murdered.
Mr Shevardnadze is accused merely of massive rigging of the presidential election machine so as to perpetuate himself in power over deepening corruption and a slumping economy.
This would, nevertheless, have been a mortal sin if committed by the very man whose vow has always been complete de-Stalinisation and thorough political and economic liberalisation of the Georgian Republic.
He precipitated the crisis, not only by the rigging but, more immediately, by denying it, refusing to order an investigation and - in a manner uncharacteristic of the self-effacing Shevardnadze the world used to know - thumping his chest with the declaration that he would never step down.
It was only after it became apparent that many of his security forces were moving over to the opposition that he saw the need to quit. This was, indeed, the saving grace, a reminder of the old Shevadrnadze.
Mr Shevardnadze admitted that, after this security split, any attempt to assume military power would have resulted in a bloodbath. Many a tyrant would have ignored this terrible possibility, dug in his heel, and landed his country in a holocaust.
He nearly did it. And it is an excellent lesson to Africa's many tyrants who choose to continue with the bootblack long after their power base has been destroyed beyond repair.
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