The world is experiencing a great struggle between democratic and authoritarian forces. Friction appears at different times and in different places in the atlas. Ukraine is today, with its brutal war, the epicenter of that tension. But this takes multiple forms. These weeks, Georgia embodies another important moment and place in that great struggle. The country faces legislative elections on the 26th that are a crossroads between the specter of sinking into a pro-Russian authoritarian pit and the hope of remaining on a democratic path and European integration. Salomé Zurabishvili, president of the country – a position without executive power – denounces that Georgian Dream, a party in charge since 2012 whose authoritarian drift has induced the EU to freeze the accession process of the Caucasian country, is carrying out fraudulent maneuvers in response to the call electoral. However, she is hopeful that a massive mobilization of voters can overcome the shady operations she denounces.
“It is evident that Georgian Dream has already lost the elections. “Their support is around 30%, and even with what I call ‘usual fraud’, something that is relatively common in Georgia, they can manage to increase that figure to around 40%, and that is by being quite generous,” said the president. in a meeting with a group made up of a dozen experts and four journalists held at his presidential palace in Tbilisi. “I hope that the authorities do not risk stealing the elections,” he said.
“I distinguish between electoral fraud, which we have already witnessed – and of which there is no doubt – and the obstacles that have been created to make it difficult for the diaspora to vote,” he said. “We have found several cases of fraud, to which we are already accustomed, and it is something almost quantifiable, estimated at around 10%. However, I believe that mass mobilization of voters, especially among young people, can counteract these problems. The main concern – and tragedy – would be if they dared to steal the elections. I am optimistic; “I don’t think they will take that risk, especially if there is a clear mobilization within the population.”
Faced with the authoritarian drift of Georgian Dream – made up of colonization of State institutions and laws that crush dissent in civil society -, four opposition parties of different inspiration have formed a kind of common front to prevent it from continuing in the power ―and in drift―. Zurabishvili, who was elected to the highest office in 2018 as an independent, but with the support of Georgian Dream, throughout her term became a force of resistance against the excesses of that party, despite the fact that her position has limited powers. .
He used his veto power to repel the most controversial of the Georgian Dream laws – the foreign agent law, which stigmatizes and hinders the action of foreign-funded civil society organizations with a format very similar to the 2012 Russian law. Parliament ultimately passed the law anyway, and it was subjected to a failed attempt to impeachment. Now he plays a kind of role as guide and arbiter of the heterogeneous opposition coalition.
“I cannot emphasize enough how critical this time is. For many years, Georgia has not faced such a decisive turning point in its elections. This time, it is not just about selecting political parties, as in the past, but about deciding the future of the country: whether it continues on its European path, which it has pursued since its independence,” Zurabishvili said during the meeting, held at the beginning of October within the framework of a study trip organized by the Gnomon Wise and CIDOB think tanks, and partially financed by the Bertelsmann Foundation, the University of Georgia and the Impact Forum.
To those who doubt the nature, intentions and relations with Russia of Georgian Dream, which in its beginnings maintained pro-European approaches and still today, despite authoritarian acts that are the antithesis of the EU, does not explicitly speak of wanting to abandon the European path, Zurabishvili It has a resounding message. “What the Russians have here is practically a puppet regime that plays for them and that uses their modus operandi”. The leader de facto from Georgian Dream is Bidzina Ivanishvili, a tycoon who made his fortune in Russia.
“Only independent institution”
Ivanishvili supported Zurabishvili in the 2018 presidential campaign. Today they are at the opposite end. Conversations held with several opposition leaders show that there is a broad and high degree of trust among them in it, considered the “only independent institution” in Georgia.
The heterogeneous front nature of the opposition coalition and the absence of a party leader who clearly stands out gives the president a role of particular preeminence in the current political context. Zurabishvili, born in France to a family that fled after the Bolshevik invasion of Georgia in 1921, is using this position to outline a strategy of political struggle and establish common denominators in the coalition.
“I have been working with the four pro-European parties on the Georgia Charter for some time now. The four of them have accepted it. The letter sets out the action plan to get Georgia back on track: the repeal of anti-European laws adopted in recent months, amnesty for those arrested or fined during the March and April protests, and a series of measures that Parliament must implement quickly to initiate crucial reform of the justice system,” he says.
Zurabishvili believes that an eventual government of change should be eminently technical. “I strongly support the idea of a technical Government, as long as it is formed through consultations with political parties. At this stage we need an Executive made up of individuals without clearly defined political affiliations. This approach is a direct path to depolarization, involving people who lack significant political backgrounds and who do not have major grudges against each other. We must recognize that public opinion, as in many other countries, reflects a lack of trust in political parties,” he points out.
The president touches an essential nerve with that reasoning. Although the authoritarian drift of Georgian Dream has very evident features, the past of opposition parties and leaders arouses deep suspicion in an important sector of the country’s society. The promise of a democratic spring after the so-called Pink Revolution of 2003 ended in a deeply questionable drift that earned great hostility to the party of then president Mikhail Saakashvili, which is today an important part of the opposition coalition. This context is the key to Zurabishvili’s commitment – who was Foreign Minister under Saakashvili, who offered it to her when she was a French diplomat – for a technical Executive. That record is the reason why the eventual defeat of the authoritarian Georgian Dream would represent a democratic hope and a European path more than a guarantee.
But to do this you have to win the elections, and in Tbilisi – and in Brussels – doubts abound about whether the Georgian Dream will allow them to take place with complete regularity and then accept a possible defeat. Zurabishvili is a figure who will have an important role, also due to his fluid contacts with Europe. The meeting in which he expressed the ideas contained in this information took place after a tour of European capitals in which, among others, he met with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the president of the European Council, Charles Michel.