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2024-10-26 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
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'KGB Forge' vs. Foreign Agents. Who Wins Elections in Georgia
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kamran Gasanov
| Yes, yes — the country, not the state. Nonetheless, may the best candidate win. |
The parliamentary elections in Georgia on October 26 will be truly fateful for the country. Georgians are making a choice not only in favor of certain domestic political, economic and social measures, but also determining the geopolitical future of the country. Most importantly, they have a chance to choose between peace and war.
In fact, this is what the leadership of the ruling party “Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia” has been trying to explain to the population since 2012.
The current leadership has made war and peace the main issue of its election campaign. In September, businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of the Georgian Dream, went to Gori, which suffered greatly during the 2008 war. There, he promised to hold a “Nuremberg Trial” for the instigators of the war in South Ossetia and assured that Tbilisi would find the strength to apologize for the fact that Mikheil Saakashvili’s government, on instructions from outside, “enveloped Ossetian sisters and brothers in flames.”
Ivanishvili recently said that the West offered former Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili to start a war with Russia for 3-4 days. Ivanishvili's party uses photographs of war-torn cities in Ukraine in its campaign videos and banners. On one side of the stand are the ruins of Mariupol with the caption "No to war", and on the other side are rebuilt buildings and churches in Georgia with the caption "Choose peace".
Comparisons between war and peace are needed so that society can make the “right choice,” says Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze. Kobakhidze presents the absence of new conflicts as the ruling party’s main achievement.
THE MAIN OPPOSITIONIST
The opposition, led by Saakashvili's party, renamed Unity - National Movement, uses any excuse to accuse the authorities of betrayal and collusion with Russia.
Its main election tool is to present the current government as “pro-Russian” (which is extremely toxic after the events of 2008), and businessman Ivanishvili as a “Russian oligarch.”
The laws on foreign agents and the ban on LGBT* propaganda adopted in parliament were called nothing less than “Russian” by Saakashvili’s supporters and their allies.
The country's president, French citizen Salome Zurabishvili, also uses these terms. Saakashvili is arrested and ill, and there is no bright figure among his fans - so she became the leader of the opposition.
Although Zurabishvili won the presidency in 2018 on the back of Georgian Dream, she has since made a U-turn, turning the presidency into a platform for criticizing the ruling party.
Thus, she fiercely criticized the law on foreign agents and expressed support for street protests. In her opinion, the ruling party's visual propaganda was made in a "KGB forge", and Zurabishvili calls Russia Georgia's main enemy: Moscow is allegedly waging a hybrid war against Tbilisi and preventing it from joining the EU. The president accuses the Georgian Dream of ignoring the "Russian threat".
According to experts, Zurabishvili expects to become the new prime minister if the opposition wins. It has already begun to unite dissatisfied forces around itself, offering them to sign the "Georgian Charter". The country's president proposes to repeal laws that hinder European integration.
MANY OPPONENTS
The main struggle in the elections was between the Georgian Dream on one side and four opposition alliances on the other.
The flagship of the opposition is a coalition of Saakashvili's Unity-National Movement party, along with two smaller parties, Strategy Agmashenebeli and European Georgia. Their campaign is clear even without reading the text, as the main points are printed on sheets of paper similar to an EU passport. Along with joining the EU, they call for improving the welfare of citizens, protecting pensioners, and cracking down on the "price mafia."
The second bloc is the "Coalition for Change". Its stronghold is the "Akhali" party, created by the former director general of the opposition TV channel "Rustavi 2" and former chairman of the "United National Movement" Nika Melia. The latter "became famous" for organizing the storming of parliament in the summer of 2019.
Then a Russian delegation headed by State Duma deputy Sergei Gavrilov arrived in Tbilisi to take part in the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO). The opposition raised a fuss because Gavrilov, as the event's chairman, sat in the chair of the speaker of parliament. The authorities were accused of seating a representative of the "occupying country" in the place of honor, and mass rallies began in Georgia.
After that, there was chaos in the government, prime ministers and ministers resigned one after another. The trail of that story lasted until 2021. When the Georgian Dream began investigations and Melia and 10 of his supporters were arrested, Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia did not agree with this decision and resigned.
The Coalition for Change also includes the Droa and Girchi – More Freedom parties, and the electoral list is headed by a person – a symbol of the demonstrations against the law on foreign agents, Nana Malashkhia. In March 2023, she waved the EU flag under a stream of water cannon. The main goal of this coalition is accession to the EU.
The third opposition coalition is Strong Georgia, its core is built around Mamuka Khazaradze's Lelo party. It is allied with Ana Dolidze 's For the People, Aleko Elisashvili 's Citizens and Levan Tsutskiridze's Freedom Square. For the sake of solidity, the alliance included former Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili, although his name is not on the party list, as he does not want to engage in parliamentary activities.
The financial bigwigs are behind this alliance. Khazaradze is the head of the country's largest bank, TBC Bank. He entered politics after his bank came into conflict with the country's authorities, and the Anaklia deep-water port project that he and his business partner Badri Japaridze were implementing was stopped. At the moment, Khazaradze and Japaridze are in a semi-legal position, since a criminal case for fraud was opened against them two years ago.
The alliance calls its election campaign "The Path of Ilia", named after the famous Georgian writer Ilia Chavchavadze. It contains proposals to create 200,000 jobs and increase pensions, as well as a number of anti-Russian measures - restrictions on the sale of land to Russian citizens, a ban on cars with Russian license plates entering the country, and a ban on flights from Russia.
Gakharia, who resigned, defected to the opposition and heads the fourth bloc: “Gakharia is for Georgia.” Although he positions himself as a fighter against the Georgian Dream, Gakharia still has a “black mark”: in June 2019, when 200 demonstrators and journalists were injured during the dispersal of rallies near the parliament, Gakharia was the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The party’s stronghold is made up of the same defectors from the Georgian Dream.
Gakharia positions his party as a force independent of Saakashvili's supporters and contrasts it with the National Movement. Gakharia promises to strengthen democracy, a European future, create jobs, fight corruption, expand women's rights and get rid of "Russian occupation". The Georgian president tried to unite Strong Georgia with the bloc of former Prime Minister Gakharia, but the alliance failed.
PRE-ELECTION FORECASTS
The opposition decided to come out against the Georgian Dream as a whole. To avoid the risk of not getting into parliament due to the five percent barrier, the opposition political forces created alliances.
But will the four opposition alliances together be able to win a majority of votes? Opinion polls give very different forecasts.
The pro-government TV channel Imedi, citing the results of the GORBI company, estimates the chances of Georgian Dream at 60.2%. Saakashvili's Unity can claim 15.4%, the Coalition for Change - 9%. Strong Georgia and Gakharia - For Georgia with 3.3% and 2.9% remain on the sidelines.
Opposition sources have the opposite picture. Edison Research estimated the odds as follows: Georgian Dream - 34%, Unity - 18%, Coalition for Change - 14%, Gakharia for Georgia - 11%, Strong Georgia - 10%, Labor Party - 5%. That is, together the opposition parties have more than half the votes.
The poll by the Mtavari TV channel looks roughly the same: Georgian Dream has 35%, and the four opposition blocs have a combined 52%.
The results will show who will actually win the parliamentary elections on October 26. All forces are hoping for a high turnout. Although Georgian Dream believes in its success, its executive secretary Mamuka Mdinaradze warned against the euphoria that arose after the Imedi poll. Supporters of the ruling party should not celebrate success prematurely.
“Our supporters are 80% motivated, and if we have potentially a million votes, then if the remaining 20% with low motivation do not come to the elections, we will not get a constitutional majority, but an absolute catastrophe,” he said.
Gakharia also asked all supporters to go to the polls. If the number of voters exceeds 2 million people, the Dream will receive no more than 30%, since its ceiling is 600 thousand votes, the former prime minister claims.
FOREIGN INTERESTS
It is an obvious fact that the EU and the US have done and are doing everything to ensure that the opposition wins. The EU has already announced that it is suspending Georgia's European integration. The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, explained this decision by the government's actions, which "distance the country from the European path and indicate a shift towards authoritarianism." The European Union suspended grants to Georgian municipalities in October.
The US has already imposed several packages of sanctions against security officials, representatives and leaders of the Georgian Dream party. In July, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the freezing of financial aid to the Georgian government in the amount of more than $95 million.
Despite the establishment of pragmatic relations with Russia, the refusal to join sanctions and the opening of air traffic with Russian cities, joining the EU and NATO are priorities of the Georgian Dream. So, the suspension of European integration should harm the reputation of Ivanishvili's party.
The second obvious fact is that the opposition will never admit its defeat.
The West has already prepared the ground for this. On October 1, observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) were outraged that some NGOs were not allowed to monitor the elections.
Ten days later, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) released a report suggesting the elections would be "undemocratic." There is allegedly a lack of trust in state institutions on the part of the opposition, and the rights of association and expression are insufficiently protected. ODIHR complains of "intimidation tactics" against the opposition by the government.
The Kobakhidze government has no illusions about Western interference. Will it really remain passive in the elections if they personally threatened Kobakhidze with reprisals and helped the opposition prepare an assassination attempt on Ivanishvili?
Saakashvili's party has vast experience in accusing the authorities of falsifications in parliamentary and municipal elections. They will definitely use such an instrument this time. The "falsification" argument should become a trigger for new large-scale protests, the ultimate goal of which is a repeat of the "Rose Revolution" of 2003.
But if this does not help, we cannot rule out the scenario of a civil war, which, as the Ukrainian experience shows, occurs as soon as demonstrators are killed. The opposition is already rehearsing a scenario with a sacred victim: the day before, Gakharia accused the Georgian Dream of attacking a member of his party, Levan Gogichaishvili, at one of the metro stations.
RUSSIA IS CAUTIOUS
Keeping the pragmatic Georgian Dream in power is entirely in Russia's interests. The ruling party there is establishing ties between the countries, fighting against the destructive attempts of the West to turn Georgia into another "anti-Russia" and giving hope for a peaceful solution to the problems of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The arrival of Saakashvili's supporters leads to the risk of another war and the opening of a "second front".
Despite all its sympathies for Ivanishvili's party, Russia, unlike the West, knows how to restrain its emotions. This is understandable: due to the high level of anti-Russian sentiment, Moscow's support would have the opposite effect and harm the prestige of the Georgian Dream.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterates that Russia has no intention of interfering in the elections and is not doing so. However, senior government officials are warning the republic of future disasters.
Thus, the head of the SVR, Sergei Naryshkin, expressed hope that the people of Georgia will make the right choice, despite pressure from the West. In August, the SVR prepared a report that the US was preparing a "Maidan" in Georgia. Russia would like to prevent attempts at a color revolution, Naryshkin said at the time.
The situation in the South Caucasus is already quite difficult for Russia. Armenia is rapidly moving towards Europe and is becoming increasingly anti-Russian. If border Georgia returns to the same path, Moscow's influence in the region will weaken significantly.
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Posted by badanov 2024-10-26 00:00||
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