Filenews 9 December 2024 - by Marc Champion
What is happening in Georgia? This question is not easy to answer, but I think it is the moment when the government of a functioning democracy goes beyond the bounds of legality towards autocracy.
This transition can be difficult to detect in real time. Governing new states often tends to be complicated, and even authoritarian regimes claim democratic legitimacy, such as the regime developed by President Vladimir Putin in Russia and that of President Xi Jinping in China. However, at some point, these claims lose their meaning. This is what is happening in Georgia.
It's easy enough to understand when an unpopular leader like South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declares martial law for no real reason. His attempt on December 3 for what amounted to a constitutional coup failed and he now faces impeachment.
However, if this is the political equivalent of an open declaration of war, developments in Georgia look more like hybrid warfare, where the undermining of institutions and rights is covert and conducted in the name of them.
The turning point came this week when authorities in the capital, Tbilisi, ordered police to raid opposition party headquarters, take their files and arrest a party leader who had the audacity to oppose it. Security officers also waited for political activists outside their homes and put them in cars, apparently to arrest them. Such actions are found in a police state.
The government tried to justify the move by saying it had information that the individuals were planning a violent uprising, calling the raids and arrests "precautionary." This is not, of course, impossible – even the most developed democracies often struggle with crowd control. However, it is also highly unlikely, given the government's track record.
For starters, he has jailed the only Georgian leader who ever acknowledged defeat in elections and handed over power in a peaceful transition – former President Mikheil Saakashvili – and appears to have thrown away the key.
He also receives orders from an unelected multimillionaire, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who built his fortune in Russia. He chairs and finances the ruling Georgian Dream party. This year, he also adopted the Kremlin's entire conspiratorial, anti-Western narrative, which his government is now zealously parroting. In this context, he presents the protests – among the largest the country has ever experienced – as the work of foreign agents and violent saboteurs.
Then there are the constitutional issues. President Salome Zurabishvili, whose role is now largely symbolic, has asked Georgia's constitutional court to review the results of the October 26 parliamentary elections, denouncing the failure to conduct voting at polling stations abroad, incidents of vote buying and violation of voting secrecy. The court – in two opposing opinions – dismissed the case on December 3, mainly on grounds of jurisdiction, saying it did not consider the merits of the evidence.
According to the official results of the elections, the Georgian Dream won the elections with 54% against 38% of the opposition combination. On December 14, Zurabishvili will undergo a new electoral process, but for the first time the result will be decided by the popular vote, but by an electoral college. Half of the 300 electors will be members of parliament, so it is very likely that he will lose. She said she would not resign as she believed parliament had no legitimacy.
It is difficult to know the truth behind the accusations of fraud without conducting an independent investigation, which has not yet taken place and is likely never to be. In a non-binding resolution on 28 November, the European Parliament called for the vote to be repeated. In response, Prime Minister Irakli Kobahidze suspended talks on Georgia's EU membership until 2028, triggering the current massive wave of protest.
This is where I think the government's attempt to pretend to be democratic is betrayed. The Georgian Dream ran for election claiming that a World War Party forced Ukraine to fight Moscow and is now trying to do the same in Georgia. The party hypocritically voiced the nation's aspirations to join the EU — the real reason Russia turned against Ukraine in 2014 — as polls consistently show that more than 80 percent of the population says they want membership. And yet, every move he's made in the last year seems designed to ensure that this can't happen.
The European Parliament has no influence on foreign policy, so its resolution was symbolic. However, Kobahidze used this move to justify his decision to bury the wishes of his own electorate, bowing to his boss Ivanishvili and Moscow. In his statement, through which he announced the postponement, he continued to pretend his commitment to the ultimate goal of EU membership, which is contained in the Georgian constitution, but the veil fell.
That is why Georgian ambassadors are resigning from their posts and the streets of the country's cities are filled every night with young protesters, who see their hopes for the future removed. To dismiss these people as the result of external instrumentalization or as criminals, as the government has done, is a profound and highly cynical insult. They are fighting to achieve what the ruling party claims it wants, but apparently does not want.
Performance – Editing: Lydia Roumpopoulou
