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FT editor Roula Khalaf selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The author is the author of ‘In Times of War: Stories from Ukraine’
Georgia is adrift. As the country prepares for elections next month, many of those opposed to the ruling Georgian Dream party believe it will do anything to maintain its grip on power. Russian leaders are already anticipating a violent outcome after the election. After years of integration into Euro-Atlantic structures, Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s de facto leader, sensing that power is slipping away from him and those on his side who run the regions, has steered the country off course. Georgia now floats in the no-man’s land between the West and the Russian-BRIC world.
Western leaders must prepare for a full-blown Georgian crisis and have a plan ready.
The mood in Tbilisi is feverish. For some, it is reminiscent of the 2012 parliamentary elections, when Ivanishvili defeated Mikheil Saakashvili. Saakashvili had come to power in 2004 and his first four years were filled with optimism and progress. Then, in the wake of Russia’s military intervention in Georgia in 2008 and the global financial crisis, his government succumbed to authoritarianism, violence and corruption. That trajectory has been repeated under Ivanishvili.
This spring, tens of thousands of people demonstrated against a Russian-style “foreign agent law” for NGOs. This is not a benign law aimed at financial transparency, but a law designed to crack down on watchdogs and others who track corruption and hold the government to account. The government is also preparing legislation against “LGBT propaganda.” All of this is a tragedy.
The war in Ukraine opened up a totally unexpected opportunity for Georgia, resulting in it being offered EU candidate status. Perhaps Ivanishvili, unlike most Georgians, never wanted this unexpected gift. Aligning with the bloc’s standards, at least for entry, would mean a major clean-up in the way the country is run, including its judicial system. But as a result of the government’s recent actions, the accession process has been frozen, although Ivanishvili continues to promise EU membership by 2030.
Despite threats and beatings against activists, opposition leaders in Tbilisi are convinced that power is within their grasp. Ivanishvili has lost control, they say. He complains of a shadowy “Global War party” that funds NGOs and is determined to drag Georgia into a “second front” war against Russia. The opposition is diverse, but the ruling party calls it a “collective UNM,” a reference to the party of the now-jailed Saakashvili.
If only Tbilisi citizens voted, the opposition might have an easy path. But that is not the case. In the small town of Akhaltsikhe, near the Turkish border, residents say they always vote for the party in power. One reason is that a large number of jobs in places like Akhaltsikhe depend on the municipality or the state. People fear that if power changes, their boss will be replaced by someone from the winning party who will then redistribute jobs and contracts among their own friends and relatives.
People are also feeling intimidated. Tamuna Uchidze, who works for the Akhaltsikhe branch of Transparency International, the anti-corruption organisation, tells me that she had seen messages from a local university professor ordering his students to attend a rally for Ivanishvili. If they didn’t, she says, their grades could suffer.
Georgian Dream mayor Irakli Lazarashvili scoffs at the suggestion that his party is moving closer to Moscow. “Russia is our enemy,” he says. “Our path to Europe will never stop.”
Analysts and pollsters suggest that Georgian Dream and the opposition are each attracting about a third of the electorate, with the rest undecided. This means things could get ugly in October. Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, has said that if the opposition loses, the US is planning a “Tbilisi Maidan” – a coup. That’s absurd. But if Georgian Dream fails to win, it could still claim victory, sparking angry demonstrations and even violence.
If he wins fairly, Tbilisi will continue to move away from the West. If he loses but tries to hold on to power, Georgians will look to the West, in which case the actions of those governments could be decisive. Eka Metreveli, who heads the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, says her country is moving toward neutrality and into the Russian sphere of influence. The vast majority of Georgians, she insists, “don’t want that.”