Elections in Georgia: Fears of manipulation and Kremlin influence are growing

Elections in Georgia: Fears of manipulation and Kremlin influence are growing

At the Joseph Stalin Museum in Gori, the small Georgian town where the Soviet dictator was born, numerous guides wait to tell the story of the local boy who made it big.

Stalin's legacy and the perception of history

Guides can list the birthdays of Stalin's family and recite the poems he wrote as a schoolboy, because for Stalin "he could have been a poet, but chose to become a great leader." However, they are less accurate on other topics. All that is said about the millions who died in the Gulag: “Mistakes were made.” There is little to report about show trials.

Stalin's influence in the present

Stalin is particularly revered by some because in 2010, when the government decided to remove his monumental statue, it did so unannounced at night to avoid protests from locals. While some older voters in rural towns like Gori harbor nostalgic memories of life under communism and long for the Soviet past, they appear to be outpaced by younger generations who have only known democracy. They welcome the fact that Stalin is being banished to the history books.

Political uncertainty before the elections

Now, as the Caucasus nation heads toward parliamentary elections on October 26, the shadow of authoritarianism is once again hovering over the country.

Many observers fear that the ruling Georgian Dream party will do anything to stay in power. She has effectively buried the liberal values ​​she represented when she took office 12 years ago torpedoed Georgia's aspirations for EU membership. Its founder, the mysterious oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, has threatened to jail his political rivals after the elections and ban the main opposition party.

A reunion with the past

After years in the shadows, Ivanishvili - who made his fortune after the collapse of the Soviet Union and was Georgia's prime minister from 2012 to 2013 - returned as the party's honorary leader late last year and has since made a series of conspiracy theory speeches. He claims Georgia is controlled by a foreign “pseudo-elite” and that the opposition is part of a “global war party” that wants to drag the country into conflict with Russia. This year, the Georgian Dream pushed through a law regulating "foreign agents" that critics see as an attempt to eliminate oversight institutions that hold the government accountable.

Echoes of the past

For many, Ivanishvili's rhetoric is eerily reminiscent of the past that many Georgians want to escape from. The Georgian Dream's anti-Western stance and controversial law regulating foreign agents directly reflect Putin's crackdown on domestic political opposition in neighboring Russia.

"It's incredible how much of that old Bolshevik, Stalinist rhetoric is back. Everyone is a traitor, everyone is a foreign agent," Natalie Sabanadze, a fellow at the London think tank Chatham House and a former Georgian ambassador to the EU, told CNN. She described some of the statements made by Georgian Dream politicians as a "copy-paste" of those from Stalin's show trials. “Have people forgotten what it was like?” Sabanadze asks.

A controversial look back

In one Speech Last month in Gori, Ivanishvili also broke a taboo in Georgian society. He demanded an apology from Georgia for the 2008 war with Russia, for which many Georgians blame Moscow. Russia fought the five-day war on behalf of pro-Kremlin separatists in Georgia's South Ossetia region, which lies north of Gori. Together with Abkhazia, another breakaway region, Russia de facto occupies 20% of Georgia's territory.

The reactions to Ivanishvili's statements

Ivanishvili argued an apology to Russia would help preserve the "12 years of uninterrupted peace" the country has enjoyed under the leadership of the Georgian Dream, which could endanger the opposition. That message appealed to his rural constituency, but triggered a political storm.

Mikheil Saakashvili, who was president of Georgia during the war but has been imprisoned since 2021 for abuse of office, called the comments a “betrayal”.

Longing for a European path

Younger, pro-European Georgians were also outraged. Her earliest memories are not of a simpler life under communism, but of Russian tanks rolling into Gori and the capital Tbilisi. As you leave the Stalin Museum - past his personal train carriage, past the hut where he was born - many buildings are still riddled with bullet holes from the 2008 war. Many buildings are still in ruins, while Stalin Avenue remains immaculately preserved.

Fear of a return to unity government

For these Georgians, Moscow's all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022 rekindled memories of Russian aggression in their own country. They want nothing more than for Georgia to escape the Kremlin's sphere of influence and continue on its path towards a European future.

But many fear the government is now heading in the opposite direction and Georgia could be on the verge of returning to the unity government it escaped from a generation ago.

A crucial election is approaching

“The election will be crucial,” Davit Mzhavanadze, a researcher at the Governance Monitoring Center in Tbilisi, told CNN. “If this government stays in power, Georgia will become more Belarusian than European.”

At a news conference in Tbilisi on Thursday, Georgia's President Salome Zourabichvili - a pro-Western but largely ceremonial figure who urged Georgians to vote against the government - said she was "ruling out any possibility other than a victory for pro-European forces." She referred to surveys that regularly show that only about a third of the population supports the Georgian Dream.

The reasons for the authoritarian change of course

A question that concerns many is why the once left-leaning Georgian Dream has made a sudden authoritarian change of course.

The party's origins were unusual. She takes her name from a rap song by Ivanishvili's son, Bera. Although some suspected that Ivanishvili - whose wealth is equivalent to about a quarter of the country's GDP - might take a pro-Russian course, he followed more European values ​​during his short term as prime minister, even promising eventual NATO membership.

The return to old patterns

“A modern civil society has been a desirable goal for the Georgian people since our independence 20 years ago,” Ivanishvili wrote in an email to then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012, which was later leaked. “Unfortunately, it’s hard to break old habits.”

This has proven true for his own government, Chatham House's Sabanadze told CNN. Her career shows the ideological shifts of the Georgian Dream. Until 2021, Sabanadze served as Georgia's ambassador to the EU. Now she is expressing concern about the party's shift to the right.

The influence of Viktor Orbán

Having abandoned its liberal origins, Sabanadze said the party was now "clearly" copying Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's model. During the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest this year, Georgia's Prime Minister Iraqi praised Kobakhidze Orbán as a “role model” and spoke out in favor of protecting “homeland, language and faith”. The government has too enact laws, which restrict LGBTQ+ rights.

Fear of repression

However, far more drastic measures are now being taken. Ivanishvili has a “Nuremberg Tribunal” promised against members of the opposition who are facing increasing persecution. During street protests in Tbilisi against the foreign agents law, Levan Khabeishvili - leader of the pro-Western United National Movement (UNM) - said he was brutally beaten by police. The next day he appeared in Parliament, his face swollen and black.

The risk of increasing violence

Khabeishvili later resigned as chairman, citing the impact of the abuse on his health as the reason. He said the attack was intended to intimidate the opposition in Georgia. "Ivanishvili has a Soviet mentality. He is a Soviet man," he told CNN.

The Georgian government did not respond to a request for comment.

Preparing for the worst

One consequence of Russia's war in Ukraine was the EU's decision to offer candidate status to Georgia. Brussels, eager to reduce Russia's influence in former Soviet countries, put Georgia - along with Ukraine and Moldova - on an accelerated path to membership.

Many say this happened despite the Georgian Dream and not because of it. During protests against the "foreign agents" law, images of citizens waving EU flags and being pushed back by water cannons put pressure on Brussels to reward the Georgian people, who polls show more than 80% support EU membership show.

The possible consequences of the elections

It is unclear whether Ivanishvili wanted candidate status. Joining the EU would require reforming the country's judiciary and giving up power if the Georgian Dream is voted out in Saturday's election. His opponents doubt he is willing to do so.

Under the country's new proportional electoral system, UNM's Khabeishvili says the fragmented opposition will have no difficulty forming a coalition after the election. But he fears Ivanishvili will try to stay in power even after an election defeat.

Signs of impending protests

If that happens, he predicts massive protests in Tbilisi and across the country. This is where things could get violent. Sergei Naryshkin, Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, expressed in August that Georgia's Western allies were planning a coup to remove the Georgian Dream from power. He warned that Russia would be on standby to prevent this.

A fate that is still uncertain

For Sabanadze, the stakes couldn't be higher: How Georgians vote on Saturday and how the government responds will determine whether the country stays on a path toward Europe or becomes more like Belarus.

“When I was in Brussels, I thought that Georgia would never become an authoritarian state again because we find the idea very difficult,” she said. "The Georgians will fight back. The Belarus scenario will not just happen."