Winter High Noon – 29 December - The fight for democratic Georgia

• The international friends of Georgian Dream
• European Parliamentarians to the rescue
• Where are European governments?

Dear friends,

Within the next few days, until 29 December, European governments will need to take a position in one of the most dramatic confrontations of 2024, in a months-long bitter struggle to preserve a European democracy: Who is the president of Georgia?

Their policy response will answer the big strategic question put to European democracies today: Will they accept a new division of Europe, where a candidate country for EU accession, a member of the Council of Europe, joins Belarus as a new People’s Republic, formally independent, but in reality, a Russian satellite? Where Georgia disappears in Putin’s sphere of influence? Where all access to the Southern Caucasus is controlled by Moscow? Where the EU loses an EU candidate, with a pro-European population, through passivity?   

It is not Georgian democrats, marching in the cold, braving threats and violence, who are passive. It is those to whom they look for support, in Berlin, Paris or Warsaw. There are things European governments can do, now, before 29 December. There are many things European governments have not done. Not one prime minister, not one foreign minister, has come to Tbilisi to express support for the pro-European demonstrators. The only EU prime minister who visited was Viktor Orban, who advanced his own (and Vladimir Putin’s) illiberal agenda.

While European parliamentarians, from Strasbourg to Vilnius, have been active, and very clear on what is at stake, governments have played hide and seek. Hiding behind other institutions, hiding behind each other, hiding behind other world events. Confused and unprepared for the question that may soon be asked: “Who lost Georgian democracy?” Or the question that should be asked now: “How to defend Georgian democracy?”

At the centre of the current Georgian drama are three individuals: Bidzina, the multibillionaire Georgian Dream party founder, pulling the strings in the country since 2012, also a French citizen who has been given the Legion of Honor by French president Macron. Irakli, his prime minister, who holds a doctorate in law from the University of Düsseldorf in Germany. And Salome, the president, born in Paris to Georgian political refugees, elected 2018, and vowing to defend Georgian democracy.

Bidzina (Ivanishvili) – Salome (Zourabichvili)

For many weeks now, there have been daily mass demonstrations across Georgia. People have refused to accept the alleged election victory of Georgian Dream in the most recent October 2024 parliamentary elections, which saw massive intimidation, violations of rules and manipulation, all established by international and local election observers. Demonstrators have demanded new, free, and fair elections. In recent days, more than 100,000 of them protested each evening only in Tbilisi. They face serious violence, mass arrests and threats of long prison sentences. But they keep turning out.

Irakli, the prime minister, has threatened these protestors. He announced that “liberal” civil society organisations will be closed down (targeted threats and previous arrests make this very credible). He declared recently:

“The central expression of all this is what can be termed liberal fascism. We have achieved a significant victory against liberal fascism in our country. However, liberal fascism in Georgia must ultimately be defeated … Liberal fascism is attempting to infiltrate every sector-politics, media, culture and the education system. It began in universities and now they are even trying to extend their reach into schools. Liberal fascism damages people’s psyche in the same way Bolshevism did exactly a century ago. This underscores the need for a firm and principled stance in our confrontation with liberal fascism.”

He has warned the leaders of the opposition, who boycott the new parliament (and some of whom have been arrested already). He threatened president Salome this week with arrest.

    
Irakli’s warnings (Irakli Kobakhidze)

Salome’s deadline (Salome Zourabishvili)

At this moment, the position of Bidzina, the billionaire, and Irakli, the prime minister he supports, is uncompromising: there will be no negotiations with the opposition. The laws are in place to put opponents in jail. More repressive laws have been going through parliament, inspired by Russia. Arrests of opposition leaders and protestors, massive violence against them, continue. Those who, on the side of Georgian Dream, are sanctioned by other countries (the US, the UK) are rewarded by the party with money, decorations and promotions.

In the end, so the bet of Bidzina and Irakli, the world will recognize the new parliament, a new government and a new president, just as Russia, China and Orban’s Hungary have already done.  And as Bidzina announced already on the eve of the October 2024 elections, Georgian Dream will then ban opposition parties for „the war crimes committed against the population of Georgia.“ Georgia will turn into a country without an opposition and independent civil society.

Victims of violence – thousands have been arrested

And yet, the leaders of Georgian Dream are also nervous. The demonstrations, calling for new and fair elections, have not grown weaker. Serious repression, arrests, threats of years in prison and police brutality have not reduced the size of the crowds.

Every evening, for weeks now: calling on European democracies to help

President Salome has lent the protests and the multi-party alliance of opposition parties a recognisable face and a strong voice. She meets leaders around Europe. She met Macron and Trump in Paris at the reopening of Notre Dame. She was invited to speak at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Salome represents the last public institution which the protestors and opposition respect. But her regular term in office ends this December, on the 28th.

Importantly, in recent weeks the president, the opposition alliance and the protestors have come together around a clear set of concrete demands:

There must be new, free, and fair elections. This is non-negotiable.

It must be ensured that these elections will be truly free and fair (addressing the many concrete criticisms made by election observers).

The parliamentarians elected in October 2024 must not be accredited by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly when it meets next January in Strasburg.

Until new, free, and fair elections are held, Salome remains the president (as a new president can only be chosen by legitimate MPs).

It is this last point that will be put to the test on 29 December, when Georgian Dream will push Salome out.

That day, a new president, a former football player recently chosen by newly elected Georgian Dream MPs, plans to assume office. Irakli has threatened Salome with arrest, should she not leave the presidential palace. She has vowed to stay and has given Bidzina and Irakli an ultimatum in turn to negotiate and agree to new elections before 29 December.  

Everything points to a showdown, a high noon moment, at the end of this year. It matters hugely what European leaders will do now. Who will they recognise as the next Georgian president? Most have hidden and taken no clear position. This is no longer possible. Will European democrats betray the protestors, the Georgian opposition, and Salome, or will they support their legitimate demands?

Will European democrats accept that Georgia becomes a dictatorship, like neighbouring autocratic Azerbaijan? There, unfair elections have always been recognised, not because they were ever free and democratic, but because nobody in the rest of Europe (except, in January 2024, in PACE) seems to care about Azerbaijani democracy. It is cynical indifference, not lack of better knowledge, that made governments pretend that Baku had legitimate elections.

Is this how Georgia is also viewed now? This would be tragic. First, because Georgia, unlike Azerbaijan, has long held competitive elections. It has seen democratic transfers of power. It is a candidate country for EU accession. It is not Azerbaijan.

Second, because a Georgia autocracy, unlike the one run by the Aliyev family in Baku, does not have the resources to chart an independent course from Moscow. Georgia would help Russia circumvent sanctions, gain more control of Black Sea ports, consolidate Russian mastery of access to the whole Southern Caucasus. Georgia would be dependent on, and integrated into, the Russian sphere of influence, formally sovereign, but in reality, controlled by Moscow.

 

The international friends of Georgian Dream

The leaders of Georgian Dream know that a large majority of Georgians, including some of their voters, do not want to end up on the Russian side of a new iron curtain.

Georgian Dream – here on X – continues to pretend that it embraces the popular EU dream

During the election campaign, leaders of Georgian Dream have claimed, deceptively, that even strong criticism of their actions by EU institutions will not undermine the (popular) goal of European integration. They argued that there is a different Europe that they could join by 2030, an illiberal one, associated with Viktor Orban, not influenced by the current „party of war“ in control in Brussels.

In recent weeks, Georgian Dream also tried to generate images of support of Western governments for their public. The transparent goal is to show protestors: „You are alone. Give up!“ To signal to others in Georgia, sitting on the fence: „We will prevail.“ To message: Europeans are ready to concede a new Yalta, with Georgia as another Belarus. They do not care enough. Why risk your health and freedom on the streets?

Georgian Dream‘s most important ally in the EU, Viktor Orban, helped. He arrived in Tbilisi only one day after the October elections. He praised and congratulated the Georgian Dream to a triumph even before final results were published. From that moment, EU unity was broken.

The new General Secretary of the Council of Europe, Alain Berset, also came to Tbilisi this December. He stated that Georgia continued to have a credible „European path“ to work on, despite the October elections. This was music to the ears of Georgian Dream. The Georgian opposition protested against Berset‘s message of appeasement in a joint letter:

„Alain Berset’s concluding press conference contained messages that do not serve to defuse the crisis, but on the contrary, aggravate the situation in the country and incite violence from the Georgian Dream … he has voiced completely contextless and irresponsible messages, which raise logical doubts about his integrity.“

“We have friends”: Orban and Berset

Salome, who talked to Berset before his visit, and who met him in Tbilisi, noted that the Secretary General was “a little confused” and did not “understand well the situation here.” The most respected Georgian civil society organisations were even less diplomatic. It was a low point for the Council of Europe, recalling years of appeasement towards Aliyev in Baku.

Aside from Orban and the general secretary of the Council of Europe, Georgian Dream has been openly supported by Azerbaijan, Slovakia and China.   

 

 

European Parliamentarians to the rescue

On the issue of the October 2024 elections, the most important parliamentary bodies in Europe have been clear: Based on the reports of international election observation missions, they declared that these elections have not been fair and democratic and should not be recognised. There is a need for new elections, as the only democratic way out of this deep crisis.

The European Parliament (which had sent a delegation of observers) stated, in a resolution that received wide support, that the 26 October parliamentary elections in Georgia were “neither free nor fair.” It denounced “numerous and serious electoral violations, including documented cases of intimidation of voters, vote manipulation, interference with election observers and media” and rejected any recognition of these elections as a result. It called for new elections within a year, run by an independent election administration.

European Parliament calls for new elections in Georgia
(November 2024)

The leaders of the three biggest political groups in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the Social Democrats and Greens, European People’s Party and Liberals, also sent a very clear message in a strongly worded declaration in early December: The only way out of this crisis was new elections.  Two of these three PACE leaders have been in Georgia to observe the elections themselves. Iulian (Bulai) headed this PACE election observer mission.

  
Frank – Iulian – Pablo

National parliaments throughout Europe have backed these arguments.

Election observers have also backed these claims. The leader of the short term election monitoring mission of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly conveyed a very clear message after these elections on French television RFI: these elections were „neither free nor democratic.“

On RFI: „neither free nor democratic“ elections in Georgia

ODIHR (the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights), noted in its final report on the October 2024 elections that these:

„took place amidst serious concerns about the impact of recently adopted legislation on fundamental freedoms and civil society, steps to diminish the independence of institutions involved in the election process, and pressure on voters, which combined with election day practices compromised the ability of some voters to cast their vote without fear of retribution.“

A recent study by IRI (the International Republican Institute) concluded that:

“a legal framework and regulatory practices that hindered genuine electoral competition, misuse of public resources by the ruling government, the targeting of civil society, obstruction of opposition parties, systematic voter intimidation, and lack of public confidence and trust in institutions contributed to an election that was fundamentally flawed.”

 
Friends of Georgian democracy – around Europe

 

Where are European governments?

All this leads to a puzzling and troubling reality: the silence from European governments.

EU governments appear to play for time. They watch the protests and the savage repression. They are critical about police violence. But they do not address the underlying cause of this crisis, the stolen elections, nor the only way out without violence and repression. So far, none have called for new elections. So far, none have visited Tbilisi to express solidarity with the opposition and the president. So far, only Orban took a clear position. With governments remaining on the fence, there has been no meaningful diplomatic initiative in months. And now, with only a few days left, they face a binary issue that brings years of EU policy on Georgia and the Southern Caucasus into focus.

Who, for democratic Europe, is the legitimate president of Georgia? Leaders in Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Rome and London have to make a choice. They best make it before 29 December, despite Christmas vacations in many countries, to state in advance that they back Salome, continue to recognize here, and back her proposal for negotiations. What is needed is a simple and clear message, best presented by European ministers (if possible, also in Tbilisi):

The October 2024 elections were not fair and democratic and will not be recognized. The way forward is a re-run of these elections. The current Parliament is illegitimate and cannot elect a new president. Therefore, Salome Zourabichvili remains the legitimately elected President until new, free and fair elections are held.

One European government has been very clear:

Salome, the Georgian president, has defined the stakes for Europe best in her address to the European Parliament this December:

“Europe is Georgia’s biggest donor, Georgia’s biggest market, home to Georgia’s biggest diaspora. Europe needs to find the leverage to act. If Europe cannot exert leverage on a country of 3.7 million, how can it expect to compete with the Giants of the 21st century? …  

Georgians will not waver, but expect Europe to step up so we can defend Europe and its values together …

If we are honest, Europe so far has not fully lived up to the moment. Europe has, so far, met the challenge halfway. Where Georgians have been fighting day and night, Europeans have been slow to wake up and slow to react. Much more could and should be done.”

Abandoning Georgian democrats would concede a huge victory to Putin. The decisions taken in Berlin, Paris, Rome, Warsaw, London and in other capitals these days may determine the future of Georgia for the next generation. It will strengthen Russia in its confrontation with the European Union. It will shape the history of democratic Europe.

Yours sincerely,