Georgia’s pro-Western opposition has called for a protest this Monday against the controversial victory in the parliamentary elections of the ruling party, Georgian Dream, aligned with Russia. After Saturday’s crucial elections, Georgian Dream (GD) remains in power, but accused of intimidation and coercion of voters. A hard blow to the country’s long-standing aspiration to join the European Union (EU).
The opposition has refused to recognize defeat and accuses GD of a “constitutional coup”, which could be the prelude to a political crisis that further polarizes this Caucasus country.
During the press conference that the opposition organized on Sunday night, the president of pro-European Georgia, Salomé Zourabichvili, stated that she does not recognize the result of the elections and that the country has been the victim of a “Russian special operation.” Zourabichvili, whose duties as head of state are largely ceremonial, called on Georgians to protest the election result on Monday night. “It has been a complete fraud, a total theft of your votes,” he said.
The electoral commission announced on Sunday that 54% of the votes had gone to the GD, which translates into 89 seats in Parliament – just one less than in the 2020 elections. The four pro-Western opposition parties together won 61 seats. This result ends the opposition’s hopes of building a coalition formed by the four pro-European parties and leaves in the air the aspiration of these and a large part of the population for Georgia to become a member of the EU.
Authoritarian and conservative drift
Since coming to power in 2012, the increasingly authoritarian GD has steered the country of nearly four million toward conservative policies, away from the West and toward Russia. Voters had gone to the polls on Saturday to decide whether or not to give him a new four-year term.
The sinister billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of the GD, declared himself the winner shortly after the polls closed, in what have been described as the most consequential elections in Georgia since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. “He is an atypical case in the world, that the same party achieves such success in such a complicated situation, is a good indicator of the talent of the Georgian people,” said Ivanishvili, considered the most powerful person in the country.
Georgia has been aspiring to be in Europe for the last three decades. According to surveys, up to 80% of the population is in favor of joining the EU. However, in recent years, the government has increasingly moved away from the West toward Russia, refusing to condemn Moscow for the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
An international mission of observers affirmed on Sunday that the conduct of the elections evidenced the country’s “democratic regression.” According to a preliminary report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), “cases of intimidation, coercion and pressure on voters, in particular on public sector employees and other groups, have been recorded, raising doubts on the ability of some citizens to vote without fear of reprisals.”
But the OSCE stopped short of saying that the elections had been rigged or fraudulent, as the opposition parties repeated on Sunday. During Saturday morning, videos of alleged cases of ballot tampering and voter intimidation at several polling stations in Georgia circulated on the Internet.
According to data from the electoral commission, in some rural areas the GD had won with suspiciously wide margins, up to 90%, although its results in large cities were disappointing.
From Europe and the United States, they have expressed concern about accusations of electoral fraud, but they have maintained cautious language and have refrained from rejecting the results. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, pleaded on Sunday for a swift and transparent investigation into the alleged electoral irregularities.
Meanwhile, Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, joined the demand of international observers to initiate a full investigation into allegations of fraud. “Looking ahead, we encourage Georgia’s political leaders to respect the rule of law, repeal laws that undermine fundamental freedoms, and together address shortcomings in the electoral process,” Blinken said in a statement.
A weakened opposition
It is not clear whether the opposition will be able to gather the necessary support in the coming days. Last spring, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of the capital, Tbilisi, to protest a controversial bill against “foreign agents.” According to its critics, the goal of the legislation was to control the country’s media and NGOs. Police repression and a series of arrests made the protests weaken until the citizen movement ended.
The result of Saturday’s election suggests a hard core of Georgian voters who continue to support the GD, especially in the industrial centers and the poorest conservative regions, where economic development has been slow and the attractiveness of Europe is something blurry and distant. Among the several congratulations that the GD received from foreign leaders is that of the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, an old ally of Ivanishvili who is scheduled to visit Tbilisi for tomorrow, Tuesday.
Critics of the GD, in Georgia and abroad, accuse the party of leading the country towards authoritarianism. Ivanishvili’s promise, if re-elected, was to ban all opposition parties and dismiss their legislators. The party faced an unprecedented union of four pro-Western opposition parties, which had promised to form a coalition government to unseat the GD and return Georgia to the path of EU integration.
Founded by former president Mikheil Saakashvili, the centre-right UNM is the main opposition force. Saakashvili called on Georgians to take to the streets from prison, where he is serving his sentence after being convicted of abuse of power. According to his allies, there are political reasons behind the imprisonment.
After the election, voters in Tbilisi seemed divided over the direction of the country. “Today we have lost our country, I don’t know what to do now; “I hope we can go out, but if we lose, it is possible that I will go live abroad,” he told Guardian a 25-year-old student, Ana Machaidze.
In general, support for pro-Western opposition parties is among young, urban voters who see their political future within the EU. A 56-year-old restaurant employee, Irakli Shengelia, said she was glad that the GD remained in power because it served as a guarantee of “peace and stability” with Russia.
Aligned with the influential and deeply conservative Orthodox Church, Georgia’s government has sought to inflame feelings of rejection of liberal democracy by campaigning for traditional “family values” and criticizing what it presents as Western excesses. The Georgian parliament recently approved a law that restricts the rights of the LGTBIQ+ community. According to its critics, the measure is a reflection of laws enacted in neighboring Russia, where authorities have applied several measures to repress people from that group.
The results of the elections in Georgia were very well received in Russia, with electoral propaganda celebrating them as they became known. “The Georgians have won,” said Margarita Simonyan, the influential editor-in-chief of Russian state media RT.
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