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Georgia’s fractured opposition wrestles with whether to contest local elections [1]
['Irakli Machaidze']
Date: 2025-06
It is a matter of faith in the electoral system; some still have it, others do not.
Opposition leader Giorgi Vashadze being arrested at his party office. Several leaders of opposition parties have been jailed by Georgian Dream recently. (Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/oc-media.org, n9.cl/a9r3j).
Georgian Dream leaders are pressing ahead with plans to hold local elections in Georgia, believing the outcome can deliver a popular endorsement of their authoritarian governing methods. Opposition leaders are divided on whether to participate in the electoral process, given Georgian Dream’s continuing crackdown on all forms of dissent.
The municipal voting is scheduled to take place on October 4, and while the results will have no bearing on the national government, they could carry symbolic weight, provided the voting is relatively free. Georgian Dream has been assailed by US and European politicians for its rapid embrace of authoritarianism. But some inside the government think the local voting can blunt foreign criticism by demonstrating that the ruling party retains lots of popular support outside of the capital Tbilisi and other major cities.
Opinion among Georgian Dream’s many critics is divided over whether to mount a campaign. Some believe that the government has tilted the political playing field in its direction to such an extent that campaigning would be an exercise in futility, with opposition parties standing no chance of winning a significant share of seats on local councils.
Others see local elections as an opportunity to rebuild resistance to Georgian Dream, especially if opposition parties can wrest control over Tbilisi’s City Council, which could serve as a powerful platform for critiquing national government policies.
One factor now hovering over the brewing debate is that three leaders of opposition parties have been jailed by Georgian Dream.
The Coalition for Change – which received the most votes among opposition groups in last fall’s parliamentary elections, marred by widespread irregularities engineered by Georgian Dream – strongly opposes participation in the upcoming elections. “The local elections [are] a fabricated and fraudulent process,” said Elene Khoshtaria, a coalition leader.
The United National Movement, Georgia’s former ruling party, is also inclined to boycott the voting. At the same time, party leader Tina Bokuchava is urging an “anti-campaign” designed to highlight the illegitimacy of the electoral system.
The underlying thinking among those favoring an election boycott is that Georgian Dream will rely on the same tactics for the municipal elections that it used to manufacture desired results in the October 2024 parliamentary vote.
For now, the two other main opposition parties, Giorgi Gakharia’s group and Lelo, plan to contest the elections. Gakharia, a former prime minister, was once a prominent Georgian Dream figure, while Lelo is casting itself as a centrist alternative.
“We believe that defeating this government in local elections will strengthen the call for new [parliamentary] elections and the release of political prisoners,” Lelo leader Mamuka Khazaradze stated, shortly before he was sentenced on June 23 to eight months in prison for refusing to testify before a controversial parliamentary commission. It is unclear whether Khazaradze’s sentencing will prompt Lelo to change course on its election participation plans.
Further muddling the picture, the Platform of Resistance, an initiative launched by former Georgian president Salome Zourabichvili, is proving incapable of promoting a sense of unity in the opposition camp. Zourabichvili argues that Georgia needs to hold new, fresh (and fair) parliamentary elections, before proceeding with municipal voting.
“Scheduling and participating in local elections when we have 60 or more political prisoners in the country is not only surprising, it’s incomprehensible to me,” she said.
Public opinion mirrors the political fragmentation. A recent poll by the Georgian Institute of Social Studies and Analysis (ISSA) found that 53 percent of Georgians, and 69 percent of Tbilisi residents, support continuing anti-government protests, while 25 percent are opposed. On whether the opposition should participate in the 2025 local elections, 54.4 percent said yes and 22.3 percent said no.
Perhaps most telling, only 39 percent of voters nationwide support holding local elections without a new parliamentary vote.
[END]
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[1] Url:
https://eurasianet.org/georgias-fractured-opposition-wrestles-with-whether-to-contest-local-elections
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