The upcoming Saturday parliamentary election in Georgia has laid bare the divisions between the incumbents and opposition groups, with both factions agreeing that the Eastern European nation now finds itself at a significant juncture. With the strategic importance of Georgia due to its location on the Black Sea, the outcomes of the election could bring about significant consequences.
The Georgian Dream party, which has been in power for the last 12 years and is led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, has been preaching warnings that the nation could fall into the hands of irresponsible adversaries. Ivanishvili and his party suggest these could reignite tensions with Russia, Georgia’s combative northern neighbour.
Contrarily, opposition parties discard these arguments as mere fear-mongering. They insist that Ivanishvili and his allies pose a greater risk by potentially facilitating growing Russian influence and obstructing Georgia’s path towards European Union membership.
Current public opinion polls hint that despite likely topping the votes, Georgian Dream could face a serious challenge from a united opposition. These varied groups are hoping to come together and form Georgia’s first coalition government in its modern history.
Senior member of the United National Movement (UNM), Petre Tsiskarishvili, shares his optimism about coalition governance. “We have never had a coalition government in over 30 years of independence. It will be like democracy 101, like walking before we run…But I am confident we can do it.”
He further draws an analogy comparing Georgia’s previous one-on-one political struggle to a sumo wrestling match. However, he now sees the election as a football game where the objective is to achieve the highest score to win.
One of the metaphorical sumo wrestlers is UNM. They came into power in 2004 following the peaceful Rose Revolution, which saw the country’s former Soviet leaders being overthrown and Georgia aligning itself with the West. The equivalent opposition sumo wrestler, according to Tsiskarishvili, is Georgian Dream, founded by Ivanishvili in 2012. The party took charge after winning against an increasingly disillusioned UNM. Ivanishvili, who hails from a humble rural background, managed to amass a significant fortune in the tenuous and cutthroat Russian business environment of the 1990s.
Despite declarations of wanting to join the European Union, the tycoon and his party, the Georgian Dream, face mounting opposition at home and abroad due to their perceived shift towards autocracy, particularly in the lead-up to elections. In this year alone, their government has implemented laws that restrict LGBT+ rights, requiring foreign-funded civil groups to register as “agents of foreign influence” – a move critics liken to approaches used in authoritarian Russia.
Increasingly, speeches from notable figures within the Georgian Dream, including Ivanishvili, express a palpable animosity towards the West. They allege that an elusive “party of war” in the West is intent on entangling Georgia in a conflict with Russia to “open a second front” and alleviate tension on Ukraine. There are also insinuations of Western interference in purported opposition machinations to forcefully unseat the government, replacing it with political figures more favourable to the EU and US.
This week, during a pre-election interview on Georgian TV, 68-year-old Ivanishvili reiterated his warning to ban the UNM and prosecute political adversaries post-election. This comes as Saakashvili remains incarcerated for three years on charges of abuse of power, and professes to be a political captive. Ivanishvili described opposition forces as a dangerous and malign influence in politics, equating them to a spreading tumor that must be excised.
Similarly, Ivanishvili echoed the Kremlin’s narrative accusing the West of utilising Ukraine as a strategic pawn against Russia, as they supposedly did with Georgia during the brief 2008 conflict with Russia over South Ossetia. He alleged that Western politicians have been preparing the countries for this role since 2008, promising Ukraine military aid, financial support and necessary resources, with the exception of military personnel.
Campaign materials from the Georgian Dream underscore the implications of voting for the opposition. Images of bombed structures and vehicles in Ukraine are juxtaposed with untarnished equivalents in Georgia and captioned, “No to war! Choose peace”.
President of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, expressed dismay at events she considered a disgrace to Georgia’s heritage, traditions and faith. Importantly, Pawel Herczynski, the European Union’s representative to Tbilisi, termed actions on billboards as scandalous, offensive, and revolting.
In December of the previous year, the EU had granted Georgia official candidate membership, however, the process was abruptly halted in the summer. As a consequence of perceived deviances from EU principles, some funding to Tbilisi was suspended by the EU and the US. Herczynski has stressed that the privilege of visa-free travel for Georgian citizens to the EU might be under threat.
Furthermore, Herczynski expressed disappointment at Georgia’s perceived retreat from EU integration, while other nations progress. Survey results indicate that approximately 80% of the Georgian population support EU membership. The Georgian Dream political party aligns with this preference, stipulating that membership must come with peace, prosperity, and dignity, as another campaign advertisement states.
Nikoloz Samkharadze, a high-ranking member of Georgian Dream, argues that their government is being unjustly scrutinised by Western countries for asserting its independence, including resisting sanctions on Russia which could harm their own economy. Current conflicts in both Ukraine and the Middle East underscores their message of avoiding any escalation that could potentially lead to war.
Samkharadze, an influential figure in Georgia’s parliamentary foreign relations committee, believes the central issue with the EU arises from the foreign agent law pertaining to NGOs. He advocates for a legal examination of this law, encouraging that the court’s decision should be acknowledged by both Georgia and the EU for future progress.
Although Georgian Dream is expecting to secure majority representation in the upcoming Saturday vote, Shota Utiashvili, a senior researcher at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, suggests that most available data favours a victory for the opposition party. The opposition has framed this election as a choose between aligning with Western entities or Russia, but Georgian Dream counters that the choice essentially revolves around war and peace.
The campaign strategy of Georgian Dream revolves around the promise of maintaining peace as long as they’re in power. They may admit to not being the perfect government, but they claim to provide stability, appealing to people’s fundamental instincts.
However, over the past couple of years, they’ve exploited this message excessively. Each time they’ve faced a corruption accusation or encountered a problem, they’ve warned that the only alternative would be war. This, arguably, has lead to the message losing its impact due to incessant emphasis.