The future of Georgia is today in the hands of its inhabitants, called to the polls for the legislative elections, considered crucial for the fate of this country divided between a pro-European opposition and a government party accused of pro-Russian authoritarian drift. Voters in the former Caucasian Soviet republic, populated by almost four million inhabitants, are expected to vote until 6pm.
There is great attention on the vote, after the result of the referendum on the European Union in Moldova, which was achieved with a very narrow “yes”. Brussels has warned that the outcome of the elections will determine Georgia’s chances of joining the EU.
The Georgian Dream that has sympathies for Moscow
In the former Caucasian Soviet republic, a tense battle thus opens between two opposing fronts: the pro-Russian one and the pro-European opposition. Georgia has been governed for 12 years by Georgian Dream, a populist and pro-Russian party led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose majority, according to polls, is in the balance after a long stay in power.
Georgian Dream, which took over from the pro-Western United National Movement government, is aiming to gain a majority in parliamentary elections, and has already promised to ban the entire opposition if it gets enough votes. For some time the party in power, which sympathizes with Moscow, has presented today’s vote as a “referendum on the future of the country”. The Georgian Dream is increasingly adopting a nationalist-conservative line and is seeking rapprochement with Russia. If he wins a two-thirds majority, party founder Ivanishvili would like the United National Movement to be banned.
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The general secretary of the ruling Georgian Dream party and mayor of Tbilisi, Kakha Kaladze, says he is ready for “provocations” during the elections and promises to “prevent destabilization”. The ongoing parliamentary elections in Georgia offer the “choice between the forces calling for the country to go to war and the forces offering peaceful development of the country,” Kaladze said.
The hope of the pro-European opposition
The clash will be direct and frontal with the pro-European president Salome Zurabishvili, in an already rather tense climate after she refused to sign very restrictive laws passed by the executive, clearly inspired by Moscow, with non-governmental organizations, media and communities in the crosshairs LGBTQ+ financed by the West. A few months ago, Tsibilisi’s parliament gave the green light to the controversial “foreign agents” law, which, according to its opponents, aims to target non-governmental organizations and Western-backed media. The law, which closely resembles the one introduced in Russia by Vladimir Putin, provides that NGOs and media that receive more than 20% of their funds from abroad will be ‘branded’ as “foreign agents” and will have to declare that they are “carrying out the interests of a foreign power”, register in a specific register and provide detailed financial information.
For European leaders, the bill in question undermines the fundamental rights of Georgians and risks further stigmatizing and discriminating against part of the population. The adoption of these measures would have “major repercussions” on the European integration path of Tbilisi, which hopes to join the Union, Brussels has warned. For this reason, the legislative elections on October 26 are “existential” for the country, insisted Zourabichvili, who says he is “quite optimistic” about the victory of his party and the pro-Brussels and Western front.
On the contrary, its defeat would mean that Georgia would distance itself from Europe, democracy and freedom. “It would be like returning to a past in which Georgia no longer has its complete sovereignty and its complete independence. We must not forget that Russia, today, occupies 20% of our territories”, underlined the Georgian president. On the other hand, due to the increasingly anti-European and anti-Western orientation of Ivanishvili’s party, Saturday’s elections should be considered a “quasi-referendum on the choice between Europe or the return to the uncertain Russian past”.
Zourabichvili hopes that the Georgian population, which in the last three decades has expressed itself 80% in favor of Europe, “will not suddenly renounce itself”. According to the latest polls, there is a large majority in favor of the pro-European parties, while the one in government is credited with only around 30% of the vote. However, there is a real risk of fraud, which could impact around 10% of the votes.
“They are preventing the diaspora from voting. But fraud must not and cannot overcome a significant mobilization of the population”, concluded the Georgian president.
