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2024-12-05 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
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EU enters decisive battle over Georgia. Russia stays out
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kamran Gasanov
[REGNUM] These days, Georgia is going through one of the decisive stages in its modern history. Will the opposition return to power, will Tbilisi again become a satellite of the West and a new anti-Russian front? The answer to these questions is given not only in high offices, but also in the squares, avenues and streets of the Georgian capital. Let's look for it too.
The parliamentary elections became the reason for the destabilization. Even before they were held, the country was periodically shaken by protests against the law on foreign agents and the ban on LGBT propaganda*, but this could not change the government's course. The opposition and its Western curators have placed their bets on winning the elections to the legislative body of the parliamentary republic. Then the laws can be repealed by a simple majority of votes, because the provisions of the new acts are not enshrined in the constitution. It already contains points on orientation towards membership in the EU and NATO, which, by the way, were enshrined by the ruling party "Georgian Dream", so everything is fine with this.
But the plan failed. The Georgian Dream, founded by oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, won the elections. The leaders of the opposition, which consisted of parties united in four blocs, first demanded a recount of the votes, a repeat vote, and then the deputies from the opposition coalition For Changes refused their mandates.
The opposition once again brought people out onto the streets and once again failed. And then the President of Georgia (who is also a resident of France) Salome Zurabishvili, who unites them into a single fist, suggested taking a break. The authorities demanded that Zurabishvili herself, who does not want to give up her post, explain her unsubstantiated accusations and appear in court, but in vain.
A CONVENIENT EXCUSE FOR UNREST
While the opposition sat and thought, the answer came from an unexpected source. Its political enemies, in the person of the re-elected Prime Minister Kobakhidze, themselves gave it the most powerful tool. Angry at the European Parliament, the European Commission and the EU ambassador for constant criticism, the head of the Georgian Cabinet said what is a "red line" in a Westernized country: Georgia refuses to aspire to the European Union until 2028, until Europeans begin to treat official Tbilisi with respect.
At that moment, on November 28, the demonstrators, who were obviously tired of senseless protests and seemed to have resigned themselves to their defeat, got a second wind. Fuel was added to the fire by the statement of the speaker of parliament Shalva Papuashvili that joining the EU would destroy the national economy.
The topic of European integration is a real taboo.
Even despite the increasing spats between the Dream government and the EU in the last year, Brussels’ threats not to grant candidate status, not to start membership talks, or to impose sanctions, Kobakhidze and his predecessor in office, Irakli Garibashvili, repeated the mantra that Georgia is still moving towards the EU, wants to “fix” relations with it, and that Brussels just needs to better study the law on foreign agents and try to understand the logic of the Georgian authorities.
In a word, Tbilisi took the position of eternally justifying itself.
And here Kobakhidze, although he did not renounce the path to the EU, said that such European integration is not needed until his party and government are treated as a government, not a colony. The Prime Minister explained his decision by blackmail from the EU through accession negotiations, demands to cancel a number of laws and Brussels' intention to impose sanctions against the Georgian authorities.
The opposition interpreted the statement in the way it needed, turned everything inside out and mobilized even more people for new mass protests. Moreover, unlike the protests immediately after the elections, the new ones have become anything but peaceful. Protesters throw stones at police officers, shoot fireworks, set fire to the parliament, damage infrastructure, and attack law enforcement officers. More than a hundred police officers were injured and suffered injuries of varying severity.
These are no longer just protests, or even a peaceful revolution, but a full-blown attempt at a coup d'état - as the State Security Service of Georgia has already dubbed them.
A DECISIVE PRIME MINISTER
Despite the terrifying footage of protests in Tbilisi, Batumi and Kutaisi (according to various estimates, up to 200,000 people came out), the "Dream" remains cool, determined and confident. The "dreamers" are not making any concessions, except for the routine statement that Georgia has not abandoned the EU and will continue the process of joining in the future.
Kobakhidze says that by 2028 Georgia will have fulfilled 90% of its obligations under the EU Association Agreement and Free Trade Agreement, and by 2030 it will be ready to join. Comparing the events with the Ukrainian scenario, he recalled that the country has already experienced three attempts at a "Maidan" in four years, and will not allow a fourth either.
The prime minister is partly right.
After all, every protest, every attempt at revolution and every act of sabotage (in the summer, the SGB uncovered an attempt to assassinate Ivanishvili) is an experience. The authorities have trained themselves on previous mass protests.
The current head of the cabinet is showing determination, and the authorities will not make any concessions. There will be no dialogue with the opposition, they will not be allowed on TV channels, and there will be no repeat elections, he said. Kobakhidze also made it clear that he will not allow Zurabishvili to pardon former President Mikheil Saakashvili. Moreover, she will have to leave her residence on December 29, the day of the new president's inauguration, whether she wants it or not.
And on December 2, the police arrested one of the leaders of the "Maidan", Zurab Japaridze. And by releasing him later, the authorities in fact showed flexibility rather than weakness, while simultaneously showing that in the event of provocations, those who call for any kind of unrest will not be exempted from arrest. On December 4, a series of searches and arrests of the leaders and instigators of the unrest also took place.
Along with this, the Dream wants to outlaw the opposition.
Plans have been announced to ban Saakashvili's United National Movement (UNM) party, the For Change and Strong Georgia coalitions, and former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia's party Gakharia for Georgia. These parties have overcome the five percent barrier and, together with Zurabishvili, are the driving force behind the Georgian "Maidan".
The authorities have not revealed any secrets about the UNM: its liquidation was one of the points of the Dream program for the November elections. Kobakhidze said in August that he would do this after receiving a constitutional majority. Now the Dream does not have enough votes for such a decision, but the attempted coup provides additional grounds to ban not only the UNM, but also three other political forces.
FACES OF THE "MAIDAN"
"For Change" is the same UNM, only in profile. The link between the two parties is Nikanor Melia, a native of Saakashvili's party and at one time its leader. In 2019, during the visit of the Russian delegation led by MP Sergei Gavrilov, Melia led rallies against the government and was accused of storming the parliament. For this act, he was stripped of his parliamentary mandate two years later and sent to prison. But the "beacon of democracy" came to the rescue - the European Union posted bail for Melia and he was released after more than two months.
The leaders of Strong Georgia are businessmen Mamuka Khazaradze, head of the largest bank TBC Bank, and his business partner Badri Japaridze, who once built the deep-water port of Anaklia. Even without their participation in the attempted coup, there are enough articles against them: since 2022, they have been accused of fraud. Like Saakashvili, they built their election campaign on anti-Russian slogans, for example, they proposed banning the sale of land to Russian citizens, the entry of cars with Russian license plates, and opposed the restoration of air traffic between the countries.
Another leader of Strong Georgia, the head of the NGO Center for Multiparty Democracy, proposed at the end of November to create an “alternative parliament,” essentially a parallel government. Something similar could be seen in Venezuela in 2019, where Juan Guaido proclaimed himself president of the country. Zurabishvili, who refuses to resign, is already a parallel government.
The alliance of former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia looked slightly more harmless against the background of the three aforementioned blocs. The party "Gakharia - for Georgia" positioned itself as an independent force and even after the elections was in no hurry to participate in the "Maidan". But in its ideology, it was not far from the Russophobic parties: Gakharia also promised to fight the "Russian occupation".
The former prime minister is another hero of the 2019 anti-government rallies sparked by the visit of the Russian delegation, although he was then engaged in dispersing the protesters as the head of the Interior Ministry. For two years after that, he acted as a crisis manager as prime minister, but at some point he resigned, and for the Georgian Dream he is a traitor, so there are even more incentives to ban his party than for others.
DANGEROUS "SOCIAL ACTIVISTS"
Foreign NGOs are participating in the escalation of the revolutionary scenario in conjunction with the opposition – the very same foreign agents against whom the law adopted by the “Dream” is aimed. MP Irakli Kadagishvili pointed out one of the main offices at the summer rallies against this law – the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), linked to the American Democratic Party and founded by the “National Endowment for Democracy” (NED, financed by Congress and aimed at “promoting democracy in developing countries”).
NDI, according to Kadagishvili, advised the opposition on how to conduct an election campaign and allocated money to inform citizens through opposition politicians about the harm of the law on foreign agents.
Other American organizations, such as the McCain Institute and the Marshall Fund, churned out negative reports on the election, positing that the Dream's victory was direct evidence of voter fraud. The reports were signed by former NDI Georgia office chair Laura Thornton.
The fact that 30% of those detained on the streets of Tbilisi are citizens of other countries also indicates active interference from abroad.
Kobakhidze said that it was NGOs that were supplying demonstrators with pyrotechnics and thus provoking violence. NGO leaders “hiding in their offices” would not escape punishment, he threatened.
The protesters' methods are the same as in 2013-2014 in Ukraine. Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, speaking about "Ukrainization", drew attention to the "trained groups" that attacked the police.
KAYA WAGS HER FINGER
The West, as before, is driving a tailwind into the opposition's sails. The EU understands that it is the topic of relations with it that is fueling discontent, and it feels its strength. Two days after the Georgian presidential elections, the foreign ministers of 27 countries will discuss their intervention in the events.
Politico writes that the EU may impose sanctions against the top of the Georgian Dream. EU Ambassador Pavel Gerchinsky is rocking the Maidan from within: before the elections, he called on Georgians to vote for the opposition, and then supported the rallies.
The new head of European diplomacy and Russophobe Kaja Kallas went to Kiev on her first day on the job, supported the rallies in Georgia, calling them "the aspirations of the Georgian people to the EU", and threatened "consequences" for Tbilisi's decision to suspend European integration, although it had previously been frozen by Brussels itself. Kallas is behaving much more brazenly and clumsily than her predecessor Josep Borrell. While the former Estonian prime minister was wagging her finger at the "Dream", the first punitive measures followed from her homeland. Estonia, along with Lithuania and Latvia, banned entry to 13 Georgian officials.
Zurabishvili’s homeland did not disappoint either: the French Foreign Ministry warned against betraying Georgia’s “European aspirations” and demanded respect for “peaceful demonstrations.”
Zurabishvili herself is literally on a direct telephone line with the EU. She recently discussed the situation in the country with Callas, the new head of the European Council Antonio Costa, and the presidents of Poland and Estonia. Zurabishvili is the "Maidan's" channel of communication with the West. Before negotiations with EU leaders, she consulted with opposition parties.
The still-functioning Biden administration is also not shy about interfering in events - the US has stopped its strategic partnership with Georgia.
THE RESOURCES HAVE BEEN EXHAUSTED
For now, the authorities and security forces are dealing with the unrest.
The special forces managed to clear the square in front of the parliament, prevent the seizure of state institutions and the blocking of communication lines. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the "revolutionaries" aimed at blocking strategic facilities, train stations and central highways.
The monolithic nature of power also remains.
The Georgian Orthodox Church, which enjoys more popularity in the country than any politician, is on the side of the authorities. The Patriarchate condemned Zurabishvili's call for schoolchildren to take part in rallies.
The Constitutional Court is also not giving in to pressure. Despite Zurabishvili's call to attack the Constitutional Court building in Batumi, her lawsuit demanding that the elections be declared unconstitutional is rejected.
The Prime Minister believes that compared to the three previous attempts at revolution (summer 2022, spring 2023, spring 2024), the current one is already weaker. "It is now clear that many resources have been exhausted over these four years. Accordingly, the fourth wave of the revolution was much weaker than it could have been," Kobakhidze noted.
The security forces, special services and the army, which, thank God, has not yet been involved, remain loyal to the authorities. True, ambassadors and diplomats in the USA, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Georgia, Italy and the Czech Republic have resigned, but this happened under pressure from the "host" countries, and little depends on them.
The biggest threat now is not the mass protests, which have already shown their limits, but escalation.
Back in the summer, the Georgian State Security Service was catching militants from the Georgian Legion (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) who were fighting in Ukraine and preparing an assassination attempt on Ivanishvili. Some of them have already recorded a video threatening to come to the aid of the opposition. If fireworks and stones are replaced with bullets and grenades, and instead of the wounded, they start counting the dead, Georgia may repeat the fate of Ukraine.
RUSSIA BELIEVES IN THE "DREAM"
Russia is closely monitoring the situation and, according to the head of the SVR, Sergei Naryshkin, hopes that a new "color revolution" will fail. The country's president, Vladimir Putin, is surprised by the courage of the "Georgian Dream", but makes it clear that Russia does not interfere in the country's internal affairs.
If for Georgia the current events are a decisive battle for sovereignty, then for Russia they are just another stage in a series of attempts at velvet revolutions along the border perimeter.
Despite the enormous pressure from inside and outside, Kobakhidze is not shy about saying that he is going to maintain pragmatic relations with Russia and restore the country's integrity peacefully, engaging in dialogue with the Abkhazians and Ossetians. If the Georgian Dream survives, one could say that the backbone of the Maidan, at least in Georgia, will be finally broken. And in the post-Soviet space, its impulses will be reduced to a minimum.
Time is now on the side of the current authorities. The less successful the protests are, the more disillusioned the protesters become. The next reasons for a surge in activity will be December 14 and 29 — the dates of the presidential elections and inauguration.
For this position, "Dream" nominated former football player Mikhail Kavelashvili. Zurabishvili and the opposition can easily create a scandal, forcing the police to remove her from her residence by force. If these stages are passed, the "Maidan" will die out.
Donald Trump may also help Georgian Dream. Kobakhidze hopes that relations with the EU, which are directly linked to relations with the United States, will “change significantly” after the inauguration of the new US president.
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