A strange atmosphere pervades Tbilisi’s Sololaki district as exiled Russians wander through streets saturated with graffiti telling them to go home. In addition to the thousands of “relocated” Russians – those who fled their country after the invasion of Ukraine – there are also many tourists who have come from Russia without visas. The war in Ukraine has only served to fan the flames of animosity towards the occupying nation that took control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in August 2008. These two border regions, which Georgia lost during the Five-Day War, are still under Russian occupation.
Read moreIn Georgia, Russian émigrés see familiar Kremlin tactics
Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who founded the ruling Georgian Dream party, apologised to South Ossetia last month, laying fault for the debacle to then president Mikheil Saakashvili and “external forces” – a reference to the Western nations with which Saakashvili had tried to ally himself in the face of Russian aggression. Ivanishvili thus exonerated Russia of responsibility for its invasion, despite the subject remaining a painful one for many Georgians.
It is a version of reality pushed by Moscow that has served to underscore Ivanishvili’s close affinity with Russia.
Greater control over civil society
While the Georgian Dream party, which is still bankrolled by Ivanishvili, has always claimed to be guided by European principles, its actions contradict this stated objective. Despite weeks of mass protest, Georgian Dream pushed a “foreign agents” law through parliament in May that requires any organisation receiving at least 20 percent of its financing from abroad to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power”. The law closely resembles a similar one in Russia and immediately sparked global concern for the media organisations, NGOs and international advocacy groups operating in Georgia.
“The government has finally removed its European mask,” said Nikoloz “Nika” Gilauri, who served as prime minister from 2009 to 2012, during a roundtable discussion at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) in September.
The parliamentary vote overrode a veto lodged by pro-EU President Salome Zourabichvili. Signed into law at the beginning of June, it remains unpopular due to its similarity to Russia’s “foreign agents” law of 2012 – so much so that its critics simply call it “the Russian law”.
In September, the Georgian parliament passed another Russia-inspired law on “family values” that, among other things, penalises the “propaganda of homosexual relations”. Just like similar legislation in Russia, the law could be used to outlaw Pride events or even public displays of the LGBT rainbow flag as well as censoring books, films and other media.
Opposition parties as well as NGOs active in this former Soviet republic fear that these legislative blows foreshadow greater state control over civil society and an inexorable return to Moscow’s orbit, which the government is careful not to discuss. “In the Georgian Dream’s speeches, Russia is the elephant in the room that everyone pretends not to see,” said Gilauri.
‘Fewer and fewer democratic elections’
While the adoption of these contested laws has removed any doubts about Ivanishvili’s true intentions, the move away from European political values has been gradual. Aware that the majority of the population wanted to foster closer ties with the West, Ivanishvili initially proceeded cautiously. After Saakashvili’s resignation in 2013, relations with the European Union remained a key political talking point.
Georgia and the EU signed an association agreement in 2014 that eased trade with member countries. Russia, which had its sights firmly set on Ukraine, did not do much to object. Some observers see parallels between Ivanishvili and former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych (2010-2014), as both played the East and West off each other to remain in power.
Pro-EU graffiti on Roustavéli Avenue in Tbilisi, Georgia on September 7, 2024. © Étienne Bouche, FRANCE 24
“For years, Ivanishvili made pledges to both the Russians and the West, while at the same time strengthening his grip on Georgian institutions and the economy,” wrote researcher Thorniké Gordadzé in an analysis piece for IFRI. “This policy allowed Ivanishvili to establish total control over the judicial system and the security apparatus, to purge his coalition of the least obedient elements, and to hold elections in an increasingly undemocratic way without really being denounced by Brussels.”
Press freedom in the country has also been significantly curtailed, according to the French NGO Reporters Without Borders.
Relations with the EU scuttled
In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Georgia – which had already re-established air links and economic ties with Russia – opted not to join the economic sanctions against Moscow.
“The major political orientations of the [Georgian Dream] party depend to a very large extent on safeguarding the financial and personal interests of Mr Ivanishvili, who manages the party like his company and its members like his employees,” wrote Gordadzé, who was minister of state for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration from 2010 to 2012.
An election poster for the Georgian Dream party featuring the stars of the EU flag hangs in Batumi, Georgia on September 10, 2024. © Étienne Bouche, FRANCE 24
However, the Europeans sent a strong message to Georgia by granting it official EU candidate status in December 2023, the first step towards possible membership.
“Ivanishvili has not been able to go against the population’s expectations. But he also understands that applying European political values threatens his monopoly and that he could lose power,” said David Darchiachvili, director of the Centre for Russian Studies, a think-tank based in Tbilisi.
Ivanishvili, who has no official position other than that of his party’s honorary president, has scuttled relations with the EU because he wants to retain control of the country, according to Darchiashvili.
Georgian Dream’s party platform during this election campaign has reflected the government’s Russian trajectory. The party has positioned itself as a defender of traditional values – presented as a bulwark against Western societal fads – and promotes the deeply conservative Orthodox Church as a fundamental component of Georgian identity; there was even talk this summer of making it a state religion. This strategy is likely to win over the more conservative members of Georgian society, particularly those outside the more liberal capital.
Georgians demonstrate outside parliament in Tbilisi on September 8, 2024. © Étienne Bouche, FRANCE 24
Finally, Georgian Dream has presented itself as a guarantor of stability in the Caucasus, arguing that a vote for the party is a vote against war. It paints opposition parties – and the West – as the embodiment of a “global war party” bent on provoking a direct confrontation with Russia, which already occupies a fifth of Georgian territory.
It is “an argument that works” for now, said Gilauri. Although he adds that, in the long term, “playing on fears without talking about the country’s future is not a winning strategy”.
Intimidation and fear
Since Georgian Dream failed to curtail Europe’s appeal for the vast majority of Georgians, the ruling party decided instead to make Georgia less attractive to Europe. Having grown weary of Georgia’s backsliding, the EU responded to the adoption of the foreign agents law by putting the country’s EU accession process on indefinite hold and freezing a €30 million financial aid package.
The October 26 parliamentary elections are considered crucial in Brussels because they will either confirm Georgia’s authoritarian turn or show it is ready once again to move toward Europe.
In a move once again reminiscent of questionable Russian tactics, the Georgian Dream party has mobilised state resources to influence the election while simultaneously subjecting the opposition and civil society to intimidation and creating a climate of fear.
And they can always count on self-interest. Some of the electorate will vote for Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream “for pragmatic or business-related reasons, because the system is based on a policy of loyalty”, said Darchiachvili.
An opposition party political bureau calls for the release of former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili in Batumi on September 11, 2024. © Étienne Bouche, FRANCE 24
Georgian and Russian authorities have already sounded the alarm that destabilisation efforts are being orchestrated from abroad. According to the official line, the West is manipulating the opposition parties to provoke a “Georgian Maïdan”, a reference to the political upheaval in Ukraine that led to the fall of Yanukovych in 2014. Moscow has offered similar warnings, notably from Sergei Narychkin, the head of Russian foreign intelligence.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidzé said in August that if his Georgian Dream wins legislative elections, all opposition parties will be banned– including the largest, the United National Movement, whose leader, former president Mikheïl Saakashvili, has been in prison for the past three years for what he says are political reasons and is suffering from ill health.
“In reality, all these parties form a single political force – the United National Movement. They are directly linked to each other, which can be proved legally,” said Kobakhidzé, going on to accuse the party of having “criminal objectives”.
A researcher at the Centre for European Policy Studies, Tinatin Akhvlediani, told Politico that such a blatant political crackdown has few modern-day equivalents.
“The only parallels for this kind of thing are Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, or North Korea – it would be the end of Georgia’s democracy.”
This article has been translated from the original in French.
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Publish date : 2024-10-25 11:54:00
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The post At odds with the EU, Georgia cosies up to Russia as legislative vote looms first appeared on Love Europe.
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Publish date : 2024-10-25 19:42:22
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