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Georgian Dream’s nightmare: Revolution in Georgia [1]
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Date: 2025-01
Constitutional upheavals are rare but in Georgia, they come repeatedly (1992, 2003, and as of this week, now 2024). We might even call them revolutions, not ideologically, but in the broad sense of mass mobilisation, a forced transfer of power, and the passing of sovereignty to a new group of rulers.
Over the past three decades, these types of revolutions have become endemic in the Georgian political system. Persistently, democratic breakthroughs in the country lead not to institutionalised democracy, but to corrupt and unaccountable governance.
Today, the Georgian government is led by an oligarchic organisation called Georgian Dream, which started as a “democratic breakthrough”. It is not a functioning political party anymore. It is controlled by a select group of people around a single billionaire, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the richest man in Georgia, who serves as the organisation‘s honorary chairman. In reality, he is the unaccountable and unchecked ruler of the country.
Ivanishvili, a plautocrat (or a plutocrat and autocrat rolled into one) and his government are now on the brink of collapse. Just two weeks ago, on the 21 November, I told an audience at the ASEEES convention in Boston the complete opposite – that the Georgian Dream government had secured the neutrality of the army and the loyalty of the police, that the opposition was leaderless, and the people exhausted. I was wrong in this analysis.
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What happened since that Boston convention in November is characteristic of revolutionary periods – time accelerated. The government, like many that face mass protest on the street challenging state power, has made forced errors. Government collapse is determined as much by blunders from above as it is by pressure from below. Georgia’s state institutions are now thus in the process of disintegration.
Timeline: What’s happened in Georgia?
Georgian Dream’s original mistake took place earlier this year, in April 2024. The government reintroduced a law that had been withdrawn in 2023 after a public outcry. Called the Law on the Transparency of Foreign Influence, it was designed to silence Georgian civil society and begin the process of “de-Europeanisation.”
But reintroducing this draconian law did the opposite as civil society was galvanised into action, and EU institutions such as the Venice commission, rallied around opposition claims that the law was anti-democratic and should be rescinded. Massive demonstrations began that spring. Youthful and joyful – Georgia was, as William Wordsworth described the French revolution in 1789 , “a country in romance.” But when the protests petered out (as Ivanishvili anticipated), the government looked secure. The police had proven their loyalty.
Then, corrupt parliamentary elections on October 26 rekindled mass rallies. Arguably Georgian Dream could have secured a small parliamentary majority without massively falsifying the elections. But it chose to rig the elections anyway, stupidly, greedily, and for all to see. Ivanishvili wanted a constitutional majority (three quarters of parliamentary seats), he said, to legally ban the opposition. A popular campaign against the forged election swamped Tbilisi for weeks after the fraud became increasingly apparent. The demonstrations and the government response were angrier this time. But by mid-November, the protests, leaderless and lacking a strategic goal, were diminishing.
Then came the fatal error. Prime-Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced on 28 November that the government was suspending negotiations for accession to the EU until 2028. This enraged a Georgian populace that for two centuries has believed it is Europe. This idea is deeply embedded in the historical imagination of every Georgian voter. Polls in 2024 tell us that 7 out of 10 Georgians want EU membership, which they anticipate will bring economic privilege, security from Russia, and a modern “civilised” path to greater prosperity.
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/georgian-dream-russia-eu-constitutional-crisis-revolution/
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