English
By Ross Gower, Analyst KEDISA
Having won the last three elections, the pro-Russia Georgian Dream party is seeking to win a fourth term in October. Having previously presented itself as pro-EU and NATO political force advocating membership to both international organisations, the party has spent its last term reversing democratic progress, cracking down on opposition movements and parties and attacking ‘the West.’
This, in combination with the EU’s recent suspension of accession talks and Georgian Dream party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili’s close relationship with Putin, has put the country’s path to NATO and EU membership at serious risk. Another four years of Georgian Dream would likely see further democratic backsliding and spats with the West, making the October election a pivotal moment for Georgia’s future membership of NATO and the EU.
The Rose Revolution and Mikheil Saakashvili Era
Georgia’s path to NATO and the EU largely started with the Rose Revolution in 2003. Following Parliamentary Elections which saw widespread accusations of irregularities, hundreds of thousands of Georgians took to the streets to protest against the Government of then President Eduard Shevardnadze. As well as demanding Shevardnadze’s resignation, the protestors called for democratic and institutional reform.
The result of the protests was the resignation of Eduard Shevardnadze, and the election of Mikheil Saakashvili as president in 2004. Saakashvili, who was leader of the centre-right United National Movement party and was a prominent supporter of the Rose Revolution, undertook a series of reforms which improved the country’s ranking in various democracy and corruption indexes.
The Rose Revolution and election of Saakashvili also saw Georgia make an emphatic turn towards the West. The Saakashvili Government launched intensified dialogue with NATO to discuss its membership aspirations in 2006, and in 2008 a referendum was held on membership in which 77% of the population voted for accession. On the EU, Georgia hosted a rule of law mission in 2004, joined the European Neighbourhood Policy in the same year and launched an action plan in 2006 which called for close relations on a number of policy issues with the EU.
Fall of Saakashvili and Rise of Georgian Dream
Saakashvili however, despite presenting himself as a democratic and anti-corruption reformer, started to be criticised for his authoritarian style of governance and corruption. This saw a series of protests which eventually led to him stepping down as president in 2007. He returned to power in early 2008 when he narrowly won the presidential election. However a 2010 constitutional reform, which moved the country to a Parliamentary system, saw his power as President greatly limited, and his time at the top of Georgian politics ended in 2013 after his second term.
In the 2012 Parliamentary election the Georgian Dream party won a majority, and its then leader Bidzina Ivanishvili became Prime Minister. Since then, Georgian Dream has maintained power and won subsequent Parliamentary elections in 2016 and 2020.
Georgian Dream, now under the leadership of Irakli Kobakhidze and Irakli Garibashvili, aware of pro-EU and NATO sentiments in the country, maintain that they are supportive of Georgia becoming a member of both organisations. However, especially in the last few years, the party has enacted policies and made statements that put Georgia’s future memberships at serious risk.
Chief among these is the recently enacted Foreign Agents Law. This law means that any non-commercial legal person or organisation is labelled as ‘pursuing the interests of a foreign power’ if it receives more than 20% of its funding from sources outside of the country. The law, which was passed despite months of mass protests, is expected to affect a large part of Georgian civil society, with a 2020 Asian Development Bank Report finding that civil society organisations receive around 90% of their funding abroad. Considering how these organisations will be labelled, the law has been widely criticised for trying to stifle Georgian Civil Society and crush dissenting voices.
The leadership of Georgian Dream has also begun to attack ‘the West.’ Bidzina Ivanishvili in April delivered a speech claiming that the USA and EU were being controlled by a ‘global party of war’ and are trying to open a second front of the Ukrainian War in Georgia. This, in combination with Ivanishvili’s relationship with Putin, has caused concern that Georgia is aligning itself more and more with Russia.
These policies and speeches have caused alarm in the EU and NATO. Citing the threat to civil society and free speech, the EU suspended Georgian membership talks in July. The USA has now paused more than $95 million in aid to the Georgian government, and the Washington NATO summit communique did not make the usual mention of Georgian membership. Such pauses in progress to membership and increasingly aggressive rhetoric from the Georgian leadership have many analysts concerned that another win for Georgian Dream in October will destroy the country’s hopes of joining the EU and NATO.
2024 Election- Can Georgian Dream be Stopped
The Georgian Parliament is made up of 150 members, meaning 76 are required for a majority. The 2024 election will be the first in the country that is fully proportional, meaning the amount of seats each party gains mostly aligns with their vote share.
On the run up to the election, there have been a series of polls conducted by Edison Research and ISSA.
According to both polls, Georgian Dream will lose a significant proportion of its vote share but still retain its place as the largest party. The party won 48.22% of the vote in 2020 but, together with its People’s Power electoral faction partner, is projected to win between 32-36% this time round.
The ‘Unity’ faction, which includes the United National Movement, is expected to win around 17% of the vote. This is a significant decrease from the 27% that the United National Movement’s faction won in 2020.
The ‘Strong Georgia’ electoral faction, made up of centre and centre-left pro-EU parties is projected to make significant inroads and win around 12-13% of the vote. The centre to centre-right pro-EU ‘Coalition for Change’ is expected to win 9-10%, and the factionless pro-EU ‘For Georgia’ party is projected at 11%. There is lastly the far-right anti-EU and NATO APG-CM faction that is polling around 2-3%.
What’s clear from the polling is that this will be a polarising election. The two parties that have dominated Georgian politics for the last decade and won 75% of the vote collectively last election will both see significant losses to the benefit of third-parties. What’s also clear is that a coalition will be required to form a Government, with neither of the two main factions projected to win a majority.
On the face of it, the pro-EU and NATO parties should have an easier time forming a coalition. Collectively, if polling is correct, ‘Unity’, ‘Strong Georgia’, ‘Coalition for Change’ and ‘For Georgia’ should win more-or-less 50% of the vote. The anti-EU and NATO parties on the other hand, are projected to win about 40% of the vote. While Georgian Dream are expected to win the most seats, there aren’t many ideologically similar parties that they can work with.
However, the opposition parties have seen divisions on the run up to the election. While six opposition parties signed a declaration of unity in June, where they agreed to intensify efforts to maximise their number of seats, there have been divisions over how to achieve this. A new 5% threshold for Parliamentary representation has been implemented for this election, forcing opposition parties to form alliances and discuss how to ensure votes are not being wasted. The June declaration of unity committed the parties to reach an agreement on the most effective configuration of the parties’ unity that will bring maximum results in the elections by the 8th July. The opposition parties however failed to reach this deadline with disputes persisting over whether to form a single opposition alliance or run in smaller party alliances.
This, among numerous other disputes, puts the prospects of ousting Georgian Dream at risk. While polling shows the combined vote share of the opposition is above that of Georgian Dream, it includes numerous smaller parties polling at below 5%, and if these parties run on their own their votes will be wasted which may lead to Georgian Dream winning a fourth term. Furthermore, if disputes get too serious, it may result in some opposition parties refusing to form a coalition with one another.
As such, this election, which is a pivotal moment for Georgia’s EU and NATO membership prospects, could very well be decided by the opposition parties unifying and resolving their disputes. With their combined polling vote share around 50%, it is vital for the opposition: not to lose votes via the electoral threshold, maximise the number of seats that they win and be able to form a functioning coalition at the other end.
Sources
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Marc Goedemans (2024) ‘What Georgia’s Foreign Agent Law Means for Its Democracy’, Council on Foreign Relations, https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-georgias-foreign-agent-law-means-its-democracy
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