Thomas de Waal and Natalie Sabanadze discuss the stakes in Georgia’s forthcoming election and explore how the results could affect the country’s course toward EU membership.
As Georgia approaches a critical election after the introduction of a controversial foreign agents law, the country’s future remains uncertain.
Thomas de Waal, senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, and Natalie Sabanadze, senior research fellow at Chatham House, discuss how the election outcome could influence Georgia’s political landscape and international standing.
[00:00:00] Intro, [00:01:43] Georgia's Political Landscape, [00:09:08] Georgia and the EU Candidate Status [00:14:39] Post-Election Scenarios
Thomas de Waal, June 6, 2024, “Opportunistic Georgia Joins Europe’s Illiberal Club,” The Financial Times.
Thomas de Waal, June 3, 2024, “Putin’s Hidden Game in the South Caucasus,” Foreing Affairs.
Thomas de Waal, May 21, 2024, “Georgian nightmare,” Engelsberg Ideas.
Thomas de Waal, May 16, 2024, “The End of the Near Abroad,” Carnegie Europe.
Natalie Sabanadze, March 7, 2024, “How geopolitical competition in the Black Sea is redefining regional order,” Chatham House.
Natalie Sabanadze, November 16, 2023, “EU-Georgia Relations: A Local Show of the Global Theater,” Carnegie Europe.
Natalie Sabanadze, May 17, 2023, “Who Is Afraid of Georgian Democracy?,” Carnegie Europe.
Thomas de Waal
Georgia will hold a critical election at the end of this month. The ruling Georgian Dream party, increasingly illiberal and anti-European in its rhetoric, looks determined to stay in power at all costs. Georgia's opposition is fragmented and unproven.
In what's been a tumultuous year, Georgia passed the foreign influence or foreign agents law that's reminiscent of Russia, and its government has made a sharp turn away from the West. This, in a country that has EU candidate status and used to be seen as the most pro-European state in the Eastern neighborhood.
What's at stake here for Georgia, for the wider region, and for the EU? Can Europe do anything to stop the country slipping further into crisis?
Thomas de Waal
Hello and welcome to a new episode of Europe Inside Out, Carnegie Europe's monthly podcast about the continent's greatest foreign policy challenges. My name is Tom De Waal, and I'm a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe.
Thomas de Waal
This episode of Europe Inside Out is about Georgia, its future direction, and what the election outcome could mean for the country's domestic and foreign policies.
I'm really glad to be joined by Natalie Sabanadze, senior research fellow at the Chatham House Russia and Eurasia program, and former Georgian ambassador to the EU. Natalie, welcome. Great to see you.
Natalie Sabanadze
Thanks a lot, Tom. It's really nice to be here.
Thomas de Waal
Let's begin with these elections at the end of this month, the current state of play. I think we've got a paradox here that the Georgian Dream governing party seems increasingly unpopular, and yet a lot of people are predicting it's actually going to win another majority again. What's going on here, Natalie?
Natalie Sabanadze
You mentioned that this will be critical elections, and I would like to echo that. This will be very important for Georgia. We always say that. But given the direction the Georgian Dream is taking, it might be the last attempt of democratically changing the government in Georgia. And this have also broader implications for the future of liberal democracy, particularly in the region where we are, for normative coherence of the post-Cold War order, and equally importantly for the European Union's transformative power. So all of these things are at play in these elections. And you're right to note that the Georgian Dream, still, according to polls, is doing pretty well. Although we have to say that after huge wave of demonstrations that we saw in spring, the popularity has definitely gone down, and the moral legitimacy of the Georgian Dream as well. There are many issues that the voters are voting for, but the Georgian Dream has managed to build the Orban-esque system where it's completely controlling the information space.
It's maintaining the monopoly over the narrative. And it's introducing in its campaign this wedge issues. LGBTQ propaganda was the latest one, Ukraine war, and positing the war and peace and presenting itself as the only power that can guarantee Georgia peace, and now increasingly talking about the possibility of restoration of territorial integrity. Of course, we also have to look at the offer on the other side. The opposition has to come up with a credible offer. I think the opposition has also really tried to consolidate. It's not one joint front,because they thought, they might start canceling each other out. One of the main campaigns or this the narrative is about taking advantage or manipulating the fear and the discontent that still exists against one of the biggest opposition parties in the former ruling party, the UNM. So putting them all together, it was considered might actually benefit the Georgian Dream as they would be talking about the collective UNM.
So now we have with the opposition, four camps. So electorate has a choice. This middle ground is also growing and is trying to be a bit more consolidated. And the president is also playing an important role. So it's really neck and neck right now. It's not decided. We cannot tell for sure that the Georgian Dream will get what they want, that will get the majority. But we also have to understand that these are structurally rigged elections, and the ruling party has a lot of levers in its hand. And these are entrenched. You no longer have basically independent institutions left in the country. You have this information monopoly. A lot of resources, state resources, concentrating in the hands of the ruling party pressure on the public sector. And you know in Georgia, public sector is one of the largest employers. So the distribution of incentives as well as pressure.
The Central Election Commission, the composition is highly problematic. Before, there was a deputy chair, which always went to the opposition. Now, it's no longer the case. And interesting enough this is a proportional election. For the first time, Georgia is going to vote according to the party list, which in principle does not necessarily favor the incumbent in the way the previous mixed majoritarian proportional did. So in order to somehow offset this, recently they introduced this idea of the delegates, which is like basically backdoor reintroducing majoritarian system. So in addition to the parties, you will be voting for certain delegates that basically coincide with the majoritarian districts. And it's interesting that these delegates that I've seen, for example, from the Georgian Dream, they're all men. They're men with the power and influence and money, particularly in the various regions. And linked to this is also the abolition of gender quotes. I mean, it was seen as the Georgian Dream doing its own illiberal turn. But this was also done with the elections in mind, because if you have, basically it's freeing up space precisely for men like this with power, influence, and money, rather than having every third spot reserved for women. So structurally, these are very difficult elections to win.
The playing field is so tilted in favor of the ruling regime. It's going to be very hard to contest. But nevertheless, parties are gearing up, and it's going to be a very hard fight.
Thomas de Waal
I've seen you see comparisons to Hungary, where you had this illiberal governing party that is actually very friendly with Georgian Dream run by Viktor Orbán, fighting off united opposition in elections last year. But then there's also the example of Poland, in which another illiberal regime was actually defeated by a united opposition. They got the largest number of votes, but the opposition combined was able to form a government. Any thoughts as to which scenario is more likely at the moment?
Natalie Sabanadze
Well, at the moment, Georgia is basically copy-pasting Hungary. I would say it's a bad copy, but nevertheless, it is a copy. Structurally changing all the structural reforms that favor the government is also following that scenario. The ideological posturing is very much the same, this narrative of protecting sovereignty, identity, good old style nationalism mixed with contemporary political technologies. Even the two campaign themes that I mentioned, which is the war in Ukraine and the LGBTQ, that was also the same used by Orbán. Even the talking points, the blaming opposition and saying that they want to open the second front, that they're trying to drag Georgia or Hungary, it was the same in both cases, into war. But however, in its crude way, I think the Georgian Dream has gone even further because these latest posters that they have put out, really caused a lot of outrage in Georgia because in Hungary, They didn't show the pictures of destroyed Ukrainian cities, but here they did.
Georgia is very pro-Ukrainian, so that didn't go down very well. But the methods are very much the same. In Poland, the difference was that the opposition did unite, and they had a personality like Donald Tusk around whom they could unite. You don't have the same person in Georgia. So the decision was made quite consciously with a lot of deliberation that perhaps here that better strategy would be to actually offer voters these four camps or three camps on the side of the opposition and let them choose.
Thomas de Waal
Let's talk a bit about the EU and about the Western influence. I mean, until quite recently, of course, you yourself were serving Georgian government official ambassador to the EU. I think it's indicative of what's happened to Georgia and Georgian Dream, that people like you are now openly opposing a government that you have actually served of in earlier years. Georgia has EU candidate status. People thought that that might be some leverage from Brussels that it would actually give the Georgian government incentive to have better relations with the EU, but the opposite has happened. What tools does the EU have at its disposal in order to try and maintain Georgia on a European path?
Natalie Sabanadze
You know the change in relations between Georgia and the European Union is absolutely spectacular. You would expect that now that we are closest to the EU that we have ever been, our relations are at the lowest that they have ever been. And it's very difficult to exactly pinpoint the turn from the Georgian Dream because. They were pro-European. They even introduced the constitutional amendment saying that Georgia's top priority, European, Euro-Atlantic integration. Then around three years ago, we see a real turn, and I think it comes around this mediation efforts, or rather failed mediation efforts after 2020 elections by the president of the European Council, Charles Michel. I think it's also interesting because at that time, the Georgian Dream seems to have decided that maintaining power is the most important task for this ruling regime.
And the EU comes up with recommendations such as reducing polarization, de-oligarchization, the independence of judiciary, all the things that are important for a normal democratic state. But they go exactly contrary to the very essence of the regime that the Georgian Dream is trying to build. It's basically telling them to disarm. Polarization is an interesting case about which the EU keeps telling Georgia and the leadership of Georgia that you've got to deal with this because it is a crippling problem. But polarization is actually an instrument. It's not just a given something that we have in Georgia. Yes, we have a culture of highly adversarial politics. It's always been there. But today,it is the instrument of maintaining dominance to always keep this polarizing narrative, pushing the opposition in a defensive posture. And it follows the playbook of these political technologies that Orban and others have been using. But if you give up, if you lose the monopoly over polarization, then you are in trouble. So when the EU comes up and tells our leadership that you've got to reduce it, which is actually a political choice clearly made by the government, it's basically telling them to give up the arms that they have and fight a very different battle.
Obviously, they're not going to do it. And the same goes to a lot of other recommendations. This is a choice that this government has made that it will keep paying the lip service to the EU and the European integration because the population is very much pro-EU. Getting the candidate status was actually very good for them because they could say “Well, we're what we want. We are defending our sovereignty. We are pursuing our interest, and we are still advancing on the path of European integration.” The candidate status was given to Georgia after 23 protests, the first wave of protest against foreign agents law. The communication was also very clear. It was said, basically, this is a nod to the Georgian people and their long-term aspirations to join the EU, and now it's up to the government to deliver. Clearly, the government has not been delivering. The candidate status is formally there, but the accession process is frozen. So that's one thing that the EU has done to signal that with this trajectory, there will be no progress on the path of European integration.
There are also talks about perhaps suspending visa liberalization, which would be very painful, and it would, of course, affect people. And in some ways, this will be the punishment of the people. But, strangely enough, it's easier to suspend visa liberalization because it does not require consensus than other decisions where the consensus is needed. And as you mentioned, Georgia does have at least one very friendly country in there, and that is Hungary. So the EU is in a very difficult spot right now because on the one hand, it wants to keep the line open. I mean, the decision, it was geopolitically determined. The circumstances that led to opening of the perspective have not changed, but Georgia's response has changed. I think ultimately it will be frozen and it is going to really badly affect Georgia and Georgia's democracy. Because if there is any force, that keeps democracy and freedom still alive under a lot of pressure, but still alive, is precisely the perspective of Europe. While the Georgian dream is building its campaign on the peace, the promise of the peace and prosperity, opposition is building its campaign on the promise of the European integration.
Thomas de Waal
To what extent should we be looking not at Georgian Dream, but at its chairman, founder, the richest man in Georgia, Bidzina Ivanishvili. To what extent would you say that this degradation, this decline in Georgia, is due to the personal decision of one man. We don't like to personalize politics, but he is obviously, he is the personification of Georgian Dream. Then I guess the question then is, some people are saying that there should be sanctions against Mr. Ivanishvili, and other people say, no, that will actually deepen his paranoia and make things worse.
Natalie Sabanadze
The paranoia is there, and I think you are right to point to Bidzina Ivanishvili. He definitely is the one man that dominates the political scene at the moment and definitely dominates the Georgian dream. If you look at the evolution of the party, when it came to power, it was a coalition, and they were a number of influential people. Now you have the system which is entirely the party that's very streamlined. If you look at the messaging, it's very clear that there is a decision to send a specific message, and then everybody parrots it. I think the messaging comes from within Ivanishvili and his fears and his paranoia. You hear about this global war party that there is some conspiracy. It is his way of thinking, and he does think that the West is out there to basically depose him from power. So what we see normal democratic contestation that should result in the change of power. For him, it's an affront against his rule that he wants to defend and comes up with this crazy conspiracies that the entire party is basically obliged to follow.
You will see a very awkward situation where they keep parroting the story about the global war party and nobody knows what it is. It doesn't have a face. Unlike, by the way, in Hungary, where there were also similar themes, the global elites, and that you have to defend the real people. But there, Orbán found a face of it, and that was George Soros, somebody that everybody knew, particularly in Hungary. And here, it's totally amorphous. So they're calling on people to fight some kind of ghosts that nobody knows where they are. He's not the man of the West. He grew up in Georgia but made all his money in Russia. He knows different rules of the game. He's very distrustful of, particularly Americans. And he hates those NGOs because he thinks that these NGOs, honestly, are used by the West, particularly the US, to make his life difficult. So he went after them.
Thomas de Waal
Just to close, should we be worried about a deepening crisis after the election, that Georgian Dream claims victory, that there will be protests, that there will be even more extreme attempts to suppress those protests? Are you worried, really, about what happens?
Natalie Sabanadze
I am worried because for all the reasons that I have described Bidzina Ivanishvili, the West has very limited resources of influencing him short of sanctions. Even if there are sanctions, his response will be indeed further moving away. I mean, if there are serious sanctions against him, he will start talking about de-dollarization, taking Georgia in a completely different direction. So he'll find ways of teaming up with the club of illiberal powers that you have talked about. After elections, if you ask me about the scenarios, it's like in the film, the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good outcome would be if you have a coalition governance that comes to power. It's not going to be easy. Georgia has never done it, but it will be a change, and it's time to learn. With all the crises predicted, I think we will move forward. The bad would be if the Georgian dream wins in a way that is not contested and continues to take Georgia in the direction of the authoritarian governance. Right now, it's competitive authoritarianism, but Ivanishvili seems to be getting tired of it. He said he's going to outlaw the opposition once he comes to power.
That would be a move away from Orbanization and towards Putinization. That's really bad scenario for the Georgian democracy, and all the people who don't feel like being part of it will simply leave, as it happened in many other cases. The ugly side is that if elections are very contested, if legitimacy is documented that it is to be doubted, people are mobilizing, in a sense that they're mobilizing grassroots observation campaigns. There will be quite a large international observation. By the way, the government is already engaged in a discrediting campaign of the observation missions, including local ones. But this will come to the fore, and I would expect that there will be protests. And because there is no influence over this regime, no moral sentiment, a sense that they are owing something to the West and that they need to deliver, in contrast to Saakashvili, they can resort to violence. That's a worrying scenario that definitely cannot be rolled out.
Thomas de Waal
That's rather a gloomy note to end, but of course, the election is not happening quite yet, so hopefully, bad scenarios can still be averted. Natalie, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Europe Inside Out. It's been great to talk to you.
Natalie Sabanadze
Thanks a lot, Tom.
Outro
Thomas de Waal
For those of you who are interested in learning more about Georgia, I encourage you to follow our extensive work on Carnegie Europe on X, formerly Twitter, and also on LinkedIn. Our producers are Francesco Siccardi and Mattia Bagherini, thanks to them. Our editor is Futura D'Aprile of Europod. Sound, engineering, and original music by Jeremy Bocquet.