Georgia Post-Elections: The End of the “European Dream”?

The elections on Saturday 26 October in Georgia, in which the party Georgian Dream (GD) – in power since 2012 – obtained 53,92% of the votes, leaving the opposition coalition far behind¹.

While at the territorial level the opposition parties have conquered little more than the capital Tbilisi, the majority of the southern regions including Samtkhe-Javakheti and the mountainous areas of Svaneti, Racha-Lechkhumi, Guria and Adjara have easily confirmed their advantage. Georgian Dream, which historically has its stronghold in these remote areas inhabited mostly by ethnic minorities².

Although the counting was conducted electronically in 90% of the polling stations, there was strong criticism and concern about alleged electoral irregularities on the part of the opposition, which refused to acknowledge defeat and, on the contrary, announced a new street mobilization for the evening of October 28th³.

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili shares this opinion. (photo), who in his first statements on October 27 reiterated that Georgia has for months been both the victim and witness of a"Russian special operation” in the form of a modern hybrid war against the population, in order to prevent the European path for which the country has been preparing for years⁴.

For the opposition, in fact, the government party led by the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili would have as its primary objective theTbilisi's rapprochement with Moscow, an eventuality which would undoubtedly mark the death sentence of a possible adhesion to Brussels institutionalism and NATO, objectives enshrined in the constitution, as well as a decisive authoritarian turn in the country, with consequences whose boundaries are still unclear.

Dal canto suo, Georgian Dream He rejected all accusations, including the pressure and irregularities recorded by international OSCE observers during the elections.⁵, claiming a victory – echoed by the current Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze – which will translate into a foreign policy that looks to theEuropean integration, possibly by 2030⁶.

However, relations with Brussels remain tense, and the events of the last year have shown no signs of a democratic turn towards opposition figures, independent media, civil society organisations and activists who will take to the streets of the capital “for freedom” and to show their willingness to build a different future for Georgia.⁷.

Although at the moment only Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (followed by Azerbaijani President Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan) expressed his congratulations to Ivanishvili and is preparing to visit the Georgian capital early this week⁸, such a position should not create illusions about the possibility that other European countries will follow suit and recognize the legitimacy of a new government led by GD.

The EU has in fact Georgia's accession process frozen in the wake of sanctions against Georgian officials imposed by the United States in the aftermath of the approval of the Foreign Influence Act, which requires organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as foreign agents⁹.

She became famous with the expression “Russian law” both for its similarities with a similar regulation in Moscow and for the alleged pressure from the Kremlin for its approval, the regulation marked a decisive break in relations with the West, and was the first of a series of government actions aimed at putting Georgia on a trajectory that seems to be turning from the West more to the East. Last but not least, the entry into force of the “anti-LGBT” law, with clear Muscovite inspirations, which prohibits any type of propaganda in a fully anti-democratic and illiberal style¹⁰.

The were of little use vetoes and continued rejections by President Zourabichvili, just as the months of incessant protests by the entire Georgian population have apparently been in vain.

If during the protests in May the demonstrators hesitated to point out the majority party as purely pro-Russian so as not to eclipse decades of adjustments in a community sense, preferring instead to identify the personal interests of a political elite embodied by Ivanishvili who made his fortune precisely thanks to a personal connection with Russia, a few days before the elections fears of slipping one way into the Kremlin's orbit they become tangible.

For example, the entire electoral campaign suggested it. Georgian Dream, who did not fail to play effectively on the risks of an imminent threat of war with neighboring Russia – the only ones to recognize the independence of the two Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia – not to be understood in the form of a large-scale Ukrainian-style invasion, but of increasing provocations on the border with the secessionist areas where Moscow has been stationed with bases, troops and war equipment since 2008.¹¹.

Considering that Georgia is not officially part of any military-type security organization nor does it have any particular autonomous military force, the effect on the population of possible troop movements on the border with Russia is not difficult to interpret.

In any case, what is clear is that the victory of Georgian Dream and his intention to continue the country's European path “from a sovereign state” They should not be read as an expression of Georgians' will in favor of Russia: a frightened electorate, the shadow of a possible repetition of what happened in Ukraine and the still fresh memory of the events of 2008 may very well have balanced any possible exchanges and manipulations of votes with a genuine fear on the part of that 80% of pro-European voters that a possible victory of the opposition (as postulated during the election campaign by Ivanishvili) could have dragged Georgia into a clash with Moscow for blind adherence to the West and its unspecified “global war party”, intending to open a second front with Tbilisi¹².

Fears that are plunging Georgia into a vortex of weakness and vulnerability, with imminent uncertainties about its democratic stability.