Now that Georgia’s parliament has passed a Russia-style foreign influence law in defiance of a presidential veto, huge popular protests, and an outraged West, the ruling Georgian Dream party might appear to have chosen electoral suicide.
By conventional democratic logic, that would be Georgian Dream’s fate. In fact, to say that the government’s pro-Russia turn is unpopular would be an understatement. Georgia is one of the most pro-EU (and anti-Russian) countries in the world. Polls suggest that over 85% of the population support EU membership. Georgian Dream may have won the last election in 2020 with 48% support, but it did so on a pro-EU platform led by ex-Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, who now leads a pro-West opposition party.
But conventional democratic logic is likely not what is driving the Georgian government’s actions. Many in both the opposition and civil society worry that the party is not even hoping to win the upcoming October elections democratically. Fears range from the possibility of mass voter intimidation to outright electoral fraud, or even a Kazakh-style Russian intervention to prop up the unpopular regime.
And while it’s likely that Georgian Dream’s descent into conspiratorial anti-Western Eurasianism will cost it support, the real picture is more complex. The urban, youthful demographic that dominates the mass protests is now largely lost to the government. But there exists another Georgia.
This other Georgia is older, more conservative, and religious. It’s a Georgia sufficiently hostile to gay rights that it effectively banishes pride events from the streets on threat of violence. It’s a Georgia that is populated by the same sort of people who have kept Viktor Orbán in power for 14 years in Hungary, and that is the bulwark of support for far-right authoritarians across the world.
Georgia’s government has made great efforts to appeal to this electorate. It presents itself as the defender of traditional values and the Georgian Orthodox Church. The party clearly aims to make the election a referendum on social liberalism, thereby emulating the success of Donald Trump, Orbán, and the insurgent European far-right.
However, the problem for Georgian Dream is that the culture wars around so-called woke issues have not yet polarized the country as neatly as in many Western countries. Pro-Europeans and traditional conservatives are not two separate voter blocs but considerably overlap. The median likely Georgian voter probably supports both the pro-EU, anti-government protests, and the Georgian Orthodox Church’s social conservatism.
If October’s general election is successfully cast by Georgian Dream as a referendum on social liberalism, it might succeed in maintaining considerable support. If the opposition, on the other hand, frames the election as a choice between Russia and the West, voters will likely turn overwhelmingly against the government.
The electoral battleground will probably likely be somewhere in between, though it is hard to imagine that the government will be able to stem its hemorrhaging support enough to win an overall majority in a fully free and fair election.
But winning a fully fair election is unlikely to be the government’s realistic objective. Georgian Dream clearly believes that it cannot rely on intimidation alone to maintain power and drag the country in a direction most of its citizenry oppose. It also requires a bedrock of genuine, albeit minority, support on which to base an authoritarian regime.
If the protest movement and the opposition are to have a chance of thwarting this, they must ensure that their messaging remains clear and focused on the issues of Georgian-EU integration, independence, and national liberation from Russian domination.
It is, after all, extraordinary to see the Kremlin heaping praise upon the government in Tbilisi when it continues to illegally occupy a fifth of the country — the two have not restored diplomatic relations following their war in 2008.
On the other hand, the movement must avoid being sidetracked into culture wars at all costs. There are of course many progressive causes that need to be pursued and won. But the time for these battles is after the election. Defeat now would not only doom these causes but threaten Georgia’s very existence as a free and democratic country.
Care must also be taken to avoid scaring off the majority of voters who detest the party of ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili and his United National Movement (UNM), which also drifted into violent authoritarianism in its final years. If these voters believe that UNM could return to power, they may stay home or return to the Georgian Dream fold. For this reason, it would be very unwise for any omnibus pro-EU electoral alliance to include UNM, which must be relegated to the role of junior partner in any post-election coalition government.
Of course, when battling a regime resorting to intimidation, fraud, or violence to stay in power at all costs, winning the support of the people is only half the battle. But it is a battle that the divided Georgian opposition must win now, or it may never get the opportunity again.
Alex Scrivener is the executive director of the Democratic Security Institute based in Tbilisi, Georgia. Before DSI, he worked in a variety of policy, activist, and research roles including at Global Justice Now in the UK, the International Criminal Court in the Hague, and the BBC.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
