Under its last two leaders, Eduard Shevardnadze and Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia has had two different narratives—one that it told to its Western friends and another that played out in the country itself.

With Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili now in charge, the new Georgian government is firmly focused on its domestic constituency and seems determined to pursue its own line, even if this causes damage to its reputation abroad.

This is how we should understand the controversial arrest of former prime minister and interior minister Vano Merabishvili in Tbilisi on May 21 on corruption charges.

Several prominent Western politicians, such as U.S. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, have condemned the arrest and inevitable comparisons are being drawn with the detention of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Ivanishvili and his team in Tbilisi respond that they have a mandate to investigate and prosecute abuses by their predecessors and that they have set up the mechanisms for this to be done fairly. They say that this is why they invited Thomas Hammarberg, the well-known Swedish human rights defender, to spend several months in Georgia as the European Union’s adviser on legal issues and human rights.

Merabishvili was the enforcer of the previous administration and a divisive figure in Georgia. For many he was the man who beat Georgia’s organized crime. For others he was the man who got his hands dirty doing business deals and setting up a system of surveillance throughout the country. Now all those allegations will be tested in court.

Ivanishvili looks to the opinion polls, which give him 60 percent support, as against the 10 percent to which Merabishvili’s and Saakashvili’s United National Movement has now sunk. While Saakashvili, who is still serving out his presidential term, continues to tour the world, seeking support, Ivanishvili is working on the home front. He gives a three-hour press conference every month to the Georgian media—something the president has not done for years.

The arrest of Merabishvili is certainly a risky step—and Georgia badly needs political reconciliation after a bitterly fought election. But the government will evidently not be diverted from the path it has chosen. The key issue now is how justice will be administered in the forthcoming trials.