AP
On November 4, another protest rally was held in front of the Georgian parliament building. However, it was not very impressive.
It seems that the restless Georgian opposition has decided to make a second attempt to seize power through a color revolution. The first one, as we know, ended in a false start when they planned to bring hundreds of thousands of citizens into the streets the day after the polls closed (the final vote count was still ongoing), but at best only a few tens of thousands showed up.
On November 4, nine days after the first attempt, there was another flop. Even fewer people could be scraped together. Yet the ambition was promising: there was even talk of setting up a tent city à la Kiev’s Maidan opposite the parliament.
This time, only three opposition forces that had entered the parliament decided to cause trouble in the center of Tbilisi: the coalitions «Unity — National Movement» («United National Movement», «Strategy Aghmashenebeli», «European Georgia»), «Strong Georgia» («Lelo for Georgia», «For the People», «Freedom Square», «Citizens») and «Coalition for Change» («Ahali», «Girchi — More Freedom», «Droa»). However, the opposition party «For Georgia» founded by Giorgi Gakharia-a former member of «Georgian Dream» and former prime minister of the republic-which also entered parliament, refrained from participating in the riots.
Obviously, the opponents of the current government initially considered a violent scenario, if not the only one, at least the main one, and prepared for it in advance.
In particular, unlike the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GD-DG) bloc, the opposition parties mostly limited themselves to TV commercials and street advertising. Campaign rallies and meetings with voters were practically non-existent. In other words, the Georgian opposition assumed that it would not be able to defeat the ruling party anyway. Therefore, it was not worth spending effort and money on hopeless activities, especially since their core voters had already secured them some seats in parliament.
A second serious point is the activity of the President of the Georgian Republic, French citizen Salome Zourabichvili, who is essentially the main coordinator and ideologist of the protests, at least among those who are in the public eye.
The efforts of this rather old lady (72 years old!) have not been in vain. On the one hand, during her visits to European capitals (Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Warsaw, etc.), she secured the support of the EU leadership and several European governments. On the other hand, she made a titanic and, it must be admitted, successful effort to form electoral coalitions, which is extremely difficult in Georgian conditions.
Let us recall that the overwhelming majority of Georgian political structures are leadership-type parties, whose leaders, to put it mildly, strongly dislike their opposition colleagues. As a result, coalitions often fall apart at the most inopportune moment. But Zourabichvili managed to assemble an «orchestra» that played, in various variations, the theme of «Russian interference in Georgian politics» and, of course, «the Georgian government’s abandonment of the path to the EU». This included the local opposition, some Georgian media and NGOs supported by Western politicians. The latter even took a number of concrete steps.
For example, in June, in response to Georgia’s adoption of the law «On Transparency of Foreign Influence» (known as the «Foreign Agents Law»), the U.S. announced visa restrictions against several dozen individuals responsible for «undermining democracy» in Georgia and their family members. In July, it announced the indefinite postponement of the Noble Partner 2024 military exercises and the suspension of $95 million in aid to the government.
In July, the European Union froze 30 million euros for the Georgian Ministry of Defense, and in September it declared that the republic’s EU integration process was effectively suspended.
Moreover, the final declaration of the NATO summit in July did not mention that Georgia would become a member of the alliance.
These hints were more than transparent… They worked in favor of the opposition and were aimed at the Georgian youth, who had been brought up in a pro-Western spirit. It seemed that a classic scenario of a color revolution was ready: the opposition and the president’s refusal to recognize the election results, mass protest demonstrations inside Georgia, pressure on official Tbilisi from outside… But the scenario didn’t work out.
In our opinion, several factors played a role.
First, there was a statement by observers from European structures, including the OSCE, the parliamentary assemblies of the EU and NATO, recognizing the elections as valid and in accordance with international standards. We believe that to some extent this was facilitated by the fact that the Georgian Central Election Commission used electronic means of identification and vote counting, which excluded the possibility of falsification. A total of 2,206 out of 3,044 polling stations in the country were equipped with such modern means. The equipment was purchased in the USA and installed by Americans.
The paradox is that the statement of foreign observers came when the president and the losing side had already begun to declare falsification of the election results as well as «Moscow’s interference».
Second, the «Georgian Dream» was supported during the visit to Georgia of Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, which currently holds the EU presidency. We have already written about the Hungarian leader’s ties with the leadership of Georgia’s ruling party and his energetic support for Tbilisi’s interests in obtaining EU candidate status for the republic.
The Hungarian leader promised to fully support the Georgian leadership’s course toward European integration. Certainly, these statements made some opposition supporters think: if the country is already moving in a Western direction, why organize protest actions?
Third, it is worth noting the competent behavior of the authorities, who are doing everything to prevent the conflict from escalating into a violent confrontation, while at the same time maintaining control over the situation — this is reflected in the neutrality maintained by the Georgian police during raids by groups of hooligans on polling stations. Moreover, judging by videos posted on social networks, these groups were constantly met with resistance from ordinary citizens — about thirty years old, with athletic physiques — who dispersed the hooligans surprisingly quickly and effectively.
The government and the CEC agreed to selectively recount votes in polling stations that the opposition considered problematic. In addition, criminal cases were opened on the basis of all allegations of violations, and the main complainants, including President Zourabichvili and leaders of opposition blocs and parties, were invited to the Prosecutor General’s Office to officially record their accusations and present evidence. For some reason, none of them found the time.
In short, the leadership of the republic has done and continues to do everything necessary to prevent the political conflict from escalating into a violent one.
The icing on the cake was the official statement by Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze that the Georgian leadership has no plans to restore diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation, made against the backdrop of numerous accusations at home and abroad of the government’s «pro-Russian» stance. A fully justified move, especially considering the presence in Georgia of about 500,000 refugees from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, who consider any steps towards normalization of relations between Moscow and Tbilisi as a personal insult.
This is despite the fact that the Georgian and Russian leaderships are de facto normalizing work in other areas, including tourism, visa regimes, bilateral trade, etc. For example, about 80% of gasoline comes to the republic from Russia, 70% of all products on the shelves of Georgian stores — including confectionery, canned meat and fish, alcohol, etc. — are of Russian origin. The flour from which khachapuri, shoti, khinkali are made is also 90% Russian.
Returning to the events of November 4, it should be noted that the leaders of the opposition parties continue to push their agenda. For example, the leader of the «Strategy Aghmashenebeli» party, Giorgi Vashadze (formerly a member of Mikheil Saakashvili’s «United National Movement» (UNM)), announced his intention to open a «front of confrontation» first in Tbilisi and then in the regions, and called on those gathered to prepare for a «great attack».
Zurab Japaridze, also a former UNM member, who heads the «Girchi — More Freedom» party and is part of the «Coalition for Change» along with «Ahali» and «Droa», mentioned two important dates for the protest movement. According to him, it is necessary to mobilize by November 21, which is the deadline for the Central Election Commission to finalize the election results. The new parliament will convene ten days later.
On August 20, Georgian Dream announced that, having won a parliamentary majority (ideally a constitutional majority) in the elections, it intends to initiate legal proceedings to declare the former ruling party UNM and «all its satellites or successor parties» as unconstitutional organizations. In this case, former Saakashvili associates fear possible repressive measures by the authorities, including criminal prosecution.
However, it should be noted that such initiatives are possible if the initiator of such legislation has a constitutional majority, but the GD-DG still has some possibilities to implement such a scenario, including the fact that the opposition blocs that have gained representation in the Parliament of the Republic represent a rather heterogeneous mass.
Moreover, in the near future there is a high probability of a change of the President of the Republic, whose term of office is about to end (in December 2024). According to the Constitution, in connection with the country’s transition to a parliamentary form of government, the next president will be elected by 300 members of an electoral college, half of whom will be members of parliament and half of whom will be regional delegates. And if the GD-DG manages to maintain control over the political situation in the republic, the change of the Georgian president to another politician is quite expected.
So the intrigue remains.