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On the eve of the presidential elections, there is a growing likelihood that the opposition will push the situation in Tbilisi to the limit. Why?
If we were to use medical terminology to assess the situation in Georgia, we could describe it as «serious but stable», which, translated into everyday language, means that the patient is unwell but is not expected to deteriorate immediately and has every chance of pulling through. But not right away — treatment can take a long time. It seems that the standoff on the streets of the Georgian capital will continue in its current form until the end of the year, with two flare-ups expected around the election of the new president of the republic (December 14) and the day of his inauguration (December 29).
Let’s try to justify this prognosis.
Assessing the balance of power in the conflict, it becomes clear that the position of the government and the Georgian Dream party is more advantageous than that of their opponents. The party has an overwhelming, though not constitutional, majority in parliament. This majority allows it to pass necessary legislation despite opposition sabotage. The government maintains stable control over the army, law enforcement agencies, special services, and virtually the entire bureaucratic apparatus. The number of defectors from the foreign and interior ministries — those who have fled or quietly resigned — is minimal. Moreover, the Georgian Constitutional Court, which upheld the legitimacy of the parliamentary elections, has upheld the election results, and thus the new government, despite pressure from the street.
Another significant factor is the presence of charismatic, socially popular leaders in the party’s leadership and government, including, with a high degree of probability, the future president of the republic, Mikhail Kavelashvili. In addition, Georgian Dream has an extensive party infrastructure throughout the country and a large number of supporters in both urban and rural areas. It dominates in most of these regions, as well as in medium-sized and smaller settlements.
As for the opponents of the current Georgian authorities (and that means all three branches — legislative, executive, and judicial), on the one hand they have substantial financial resources, including funds channeled through NGOs by Western foundations and governments. On the other hand, their core support base is quite limited. Most of their voters and supporters are residents of large cities, a significant portion of whom are the Western-oriented intelligentsia closely linked to foreign foundations, as well as the youth. The latter group, along with paid activists from opposition structures and funds, make up the majority of participants in the ongoing unrest.
The artificial creation of opposition blocs, in which key positions are held by parties that emerged from the fragmentation of the United National Movement (UNM), has meant that the opponents of the current government have failed to present a truly popular leader in the republic. For the most part, the opposition leadership consists of former high-ranking figures or functionaries of ex-President Saakashvili’s party, which is viewed negatively by the majority of the population. In essence, the opposition blocs that participated in the parliamentary elections resemble a patchwork quilt stitched together by the still incumbent President of the Republic, Salome Zurabishvili.
As for this esteemed lady — a French citizen and former French ambassador to Tbilisi — her appearance in Georgian politics is also associated with the ill-remembered Saakashvili era, when he appointed her foreign minister. Later, as a compromise candidate to whom the opposition did not object, she was put forward by Georgian Dream for the presidency, whose powers, incidentally, expire on December 16.
Obviously, the party leadership had another goal: to use Zurabishvili’s connections in Paris and other European capitals to lobby for Georgia’s accession to the European Union. How productive their efforts were in securing the candidate status for EU membership, which Georgia achieved at the end of last year, is not known. Judging by the available information, Viktor Orbán and his contacts with the Georgian government played a key role in this process, as we noted earlier.
It is a fact, however, that the promotion of Salome Zurabishvili backfired on the ruling party in the most unpleasant way: she quickly turned into the «president of the opposition».
Returning to the situation on the streets of Tbilisi, it can be noted that the number of participants in the protests has noticeably decreased and for a while took on a more peaceful character. This change is connected with the December 4 raids by law enforcement agencies on the offices of the «Jiutebi» movement, the opposition parties «Droa» and «Girchi», as well as the Youth Organization of the UNM and several other opposition-oriented organizations. A large amount of pyrotechnics, gas masks, Molotov cocktails and other items were confiscated.
However, the Georgian State Security Service (SSG) warned citizens of a possible sharp escalation in the republic in the coming days. According to the intelligence service, the government’s opponents are planning to «maximally aggravate the situation», after which «two or three people should die». The SSG reports that these planned deaths are intended to reignite the dwindling energy of the protests in front of the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi.
In our opinion, the conflict currently unfolding in the republic is, in a way, an echo of the confrontation in the United States between the Trumpists and the Democratic Party. It is no secret that many of the Georgian opposition NGOs are financed by organizations linked to George Soros, who is one of the financial backers of the US Democratic Party. Zurabishvili herself is closely tied to the European political elite, of which she remains essentially a member. And the EU leadership, like many European politicians, is tied in one way or another to the American Democrats, who feel deeply uncomfortable after Trump’s election. The exception in this company is Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, who has long supported the newly elected U.S. president. Thus, a possible Tbilisi-Budapest-Washington connection seems quite clear.
Apart from political motives, the leaders of the opposition and the still-president Zurabishvili are also driven by purely personal factors in their desire to escalate the situation in Georgia to the limit. It should be recalled that shortly before the parliamentary elections, the leaders of Georgian Dream began to talk about holding the «collective national movement», i.e. the former ruling party UNM and the parties created on its basis, responsible for starting the war in August 2008. And earlier this month, accusing them of organizing unrest in the republic, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told a government meeting on December 2: «Before the elections, we talked about the possibility of declaring certain political parties unconstitutional. We linked this to the achievement of a constitutional majority. But these people are acting in such a way that this issue can be raised even without a constitutional majority».
Under these circumstances, it cannot be excluded that after the banning of certain political structures, their leaders will be prosecuted.
As far as the current president is concerned, the Georgian Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs recently considered and supported amendments to the Law «On the Special State Security Service», according to which Salome Zurabishvili will lose her state security protection after the expiration of her presidential powers, i.e. already on December 17.
According to the amendments, a former president, prime minister or speaker of parliament will not be granted state protection if the Constitutional Court has confirmed that they violated the main law of the country, or if there is evidence of a crime in their actions, or if their term of office ended due to the commission of a crime.
In October 2023, the Constitutional Court of Georgia, within the framework of the impeachment procedure initiated by the ruling Georgian Dream party, confirmed that Zurabishvili had violated the Constitution of the country.
So it appears that in the not-too-distant future, Georgia could witness a great political exodus led by kalbatono (Madam) Salome. After all, staying in the republic will be, to put it mildly, quite risky for this entire opposition clique.