To były dla Gruzji najważniejsze wybory od lat – obie strony politycznego konfliktu określały je mianem „referendum”. Z perspektywy prozachodniej opozycji Gruzini wybierali w sobotę między Europą i Rosją. Z kolei w optyce partii rządzącej i rosyjskiej dezinformacji był to wybór pomiędzy pokojem a wojną z Rosją, do której rzekomo dąży opozycja.
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Russia has won, or peace, if you prefer. According to data from the Central Election Commission (CEC), the ruling party, Georgian Dream, won a record 53.9 percent of the vote, while a total of 37.8 percent of Georgians voted for the four opposition lists. Independent pre-election polls and exit polls did not rule out a victory for the party in power, but did not give it that much of an advantage.
Georgian Dream, the party of Russia-linked oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, came to power in 2012. It promised a continuation of its European course, but also a normalization of relations, strained after the 2008 war, with its big brother, on which the Georgian economy heavily depends. In recent years, the formation has moved decisively closer to the Kremlin. It has not explicitly condemned Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine and has become a hub for bypassing European sanctions.
https://krytykapolityczna.pl/multimedia/podcast/pies-bez-nogi-i-podziemne-miasto-puto-o-gruzji-i-ukrainie-w-konfrontacji-z-rosja/
Informal democratic opposition leader and Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili declared Sunday night that the parliamentary elections "took place under Russian influence" and were rigged. She called for protests, which gathered thousands of people in front of the Tbilisi parliament on Monday evening. Representatives of opposition parties announced they would not recognize the results presented by the CEC, and Western politicians expressed ritual concern.
West minus Western values
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Election-watching organizations have in fact found irregularities - and, according to the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), on an unprecedented scale. Vote-buying and coercion of budget employees (so-called "exploitation of administrative resources") are normal in Georgia, and even more brazen violations have been carried out. Several ballots were issued to one person at a time, ID cards were requisitioned from some voters, and there were even physical attacks on observers and journalists covering the elections.
Regardless of the scale of electoral irregularities, however, it is worth remembering that Georgian Dream has an organic electorate that could perhaps give the party a fair victory. Based on independent polls, it can be estimated at about 30-35 percent of the population - mainly residents of smaller centers, elderly and less educated people. Some part of them recalls the USSR with nostalgia, but this does not entail unequivocally pro-Russian views or opposition to Georgia's European path. In opinion polls, 85-90 percent of citizens are in favor of EU membership.
https://krytykapolityczna.pl/swiat/rosja-chce-kontroli-nad-gruzja-musi-pokonac-dzenzi-i-ich-matki/
How is this possible? Well, it's that support for Georgia's European path doesn't necessarily mean support for Western values, more like longing for a Western level or lifestyle. The Georgian Dream, by the way, does not want to abandon this path - one of the party's election slogans was: "Yes to Europe, but with dignity" - that is, in the Orbán way, not on one's knees. The average Georgian associates rapprochement with Europe precisely with the party in power - it was during its rule that visa-free entry to the EU was introduced, and Georgia was granted candidate status for EU membership.
The relatively large support for the authorities is not even harmed by painful high prices, high unemployment or mass emigration. The Georgian Dream has managed to create itself in the eyes of many citizens as a guarantor of peace in troubled times. In its narrative, the West - that is, the "global party of war" - is trying, together with the opposition, to open a "second front" in Georgia, that is, to bring Georgia into war with Russia. In one election spot Georgian cities are juxtaposed with bombed-out Ukrainian buildings.
During the election campaign, Georgian Dream also promised the restoration of the country's territorial sovereignty (i.e., the return of Russian-controlled Abkhazia and South Ossetia to the motherland) and a fight against Georgia's second chief enemy after the "global war party," the LGBT+ lobby. The party has been helped in spreading these demands by the Orthodox Church, the power-dependent media and Russian disinformation, which has been extremely active in these elections.
Too tired and discouraged to protest
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Georgia's fractured opposition proved powerless in the face of this advantage. During the campaign, it failed to forge a convincing counter-narrative or an articulate leader. At Monday's protest in front of parliament, its representatives demanded a rerun of the elections under the supervision of the international election administration, but the estimated turnout of several thousand people does not indicate that Georgians still have the strength to protest. In May, pro-democracy protests gathered 300,000 people, or nearly 10 percent of the country's population, on the streets of Tbilisi.
Georgian civil society seems tired and broken - and hardly surprising. The authorities have remained deaf to the pro-democratic protests that have been taking place outside the parliament on Rustaveli Avenue regularly for several years, and their flight into the depths of kremloid authoritarianism has accelerated dynamically in recent times. In recent months, Georgian Dream has passed two laws modeled on Russian ones - the so-called Foreign Agents Law and the Law on the Protection of Family Values (known as the anti-LGBT+ law). Both - and especially the former - are a blow to Georgian NGOs and independent media. There was also Russian-style repression - pro-democracy activists began to be intimidated and beaten by "unknown perpetrators."
https://krytykapolityczna.pl/swiat/wyrzut-sumienia-kulturalnego-swiata-lewica-w-obronie-niepodleglej-gruzji/
It doesn't look like the Georgian opposition has a plan of action in the current situation. It is unlikely to be able to count on the support of the West, which has the war-losing Ukraine and Russia's hybrid-played Moldova on its hands. Democratic Georgia once again in its history - as it was in 1921, when the Soviet Union absorbed the Democratic Republic of Georgia - may become a thing of the past.
