With such high stakes, voting kicked off in a tense environment. Election observers, such as ISFED, have reported three alleged cases of vote-buying, and local media outlets have reported an incident involving a physical confrontation at one of the polling stations. According to local publication Publika, an opposition activist was beaten. A video circulating online … Read more
According to Ketevan Chachava, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, “the polling station results we are seeing now are based on the electronic voting machines — around two-thirds of the overall, but that could still change. However, the expectation is that Georgian Dream’s votes would be lower than previous elections and this figure … Read more
But is this really the decision Georgians are making? Is the binary that clear cut? I’m not so sure. To understand the political situation in any country, Georgia included, ask a cab driver, the old adage goes. Maybe the average Joe — or in this case, Giorgi — could shed some light. As he steered his … Read more
“The European way united us. Forward to Europe! Peace to Georgia,” Khvicha Kvaratskhelia— winger for Serie A club Napoli and a scorer for the national team in the legendary win against Portugal — wrote on Facebook in April, as Georgians were holding protests against the “foreign agent law.” Many other players from the Georgian national … Read more
With parliamentary elections set for late October, and EU membership negotiations due to start shortly thereafter, the timing of this behavior was largely puzzling. However, an even greater riddle was the ruling party’s 12-year reign: If Georgians were so passionate about Western integration, why did they keep reelecting the anti-EU Georgian Dream (GD) for more … Read more
“We are ignored by everyone. Since 2019, we’ve been trying to make the government listen to our concerns, but to no avail. Not a single person has come to our aid. The opposition, too, has its own agenda,” Giorgi Neparidze, a protester from Shukruti, told POLITICO. Georgian Manganese, their mining employer, has caused huge environmental … Read more
Georgian Dream in May forced a controversial new law through the parliament that will force Western-backed NGOs to register as “foreign agents,” echoing rules used by Moscow to persecute dissenting voices. The government is now forging ahead with legislation that would sharply curtail LGBTQ+ rights and ban all mention of the community from popular culture, … Read more
Asked to explain whom Ivanishvili was referring to, Lashkhi volunteered that “freemasons” were behind schemes across the world. “We were seeing they do have the influence on global politics,” she insisted, but declined to name any other groups supposedly responsible. “Today, when me, myself, I am involved in foreign relations and sometimes when I have … Read more
Meanwhile, Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili has threatened to crack down on the demonstrators — announcing plans to create a database of those he says are “involved in violence, illegal activities, intimidation and blackmail or approve of such behavior.” The database would be published online to name and shame those accused of transgressions. Critics see it … Read more
While Ivanishvili devoted his speech to calling out the enemies attacking Georgia, he didn’t namecheck Russia, even though Moscow occupies 20 percent of Georgian territories, backing local proxies in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He also vowed that the United National Movement, Georgia’s largest bloc of opposition MPs, would face “harsh political … Read more
