By Vlad in Tbilisi. 19 December 2024
A new wave of protests has been ongoing in Georgia since October and shows no sign of subsiding. They follow this spring’s demonstrations against the “Russian law”, and the widespread disgust in September with the passing of a stringent law against LGBTQ+ rights, followed the day after by the brutal murder of one of the country’s best known transgender persons – Kesaria Abramidze. The “Russian law” would mean any organisation receiving money from abroad will be subject to strict regulation – a similar law in Russia is a serious weapon used by the Kremlin against opposition voices.
In the face of an aggressively bureaucratic response by the ruling ”Georgian Dream” party and its legislators, Georgians across the country have continued to come out into the cold and rain (and even snow in some places) now for the 21st day every morning, day, evening and night without a break.
Initially these mass protests began due to the Georgian people’s refusal to recognize the results of the October 2024 parliamentary elections. In these, in what many believe to have been a rigged vote, “Georgian Dream” strengthened its position. They stepped up after the “so far still” Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s statement that negotiations on joining the EU had been suspended. This was met with righteous anger across Georgian society, with many prepared to take action, particularly those dissatisfied with the increasing cudgels of state repression, and the rapid “Easternization” of their country.
The European Union has responded with the suggestion that sanctions on persons could be used. The abolition of visa-free travel with Georgia is being discussed, while they routinely condemn police violence and lawlessness committed by the guardians of “order” in Tbilisi, Batumi and other cities. In response, Kobakhidze boasts that the Georgian machine of violence operates at a higher professional level in comparison with their colleagues from Europe, and France in particular.
Although the protests gained momentum after the suspension of negotiations with the EU, the ruling party continues to provide more reasons for popular resentment to be expressed. This decision, according to Kobakhidze himself, does not imply a rejection of the European course of development. The abrupt change of vector from west to east, or more correctly to the north is due to a combination of various domestic and foreign policy factors, an analysis of which is outside the scope of this article.
It is quite obvious though, that the government, if not completely cutting off contacts with the EU, is at least limiting them, while is itself being held increasingly at arm’s length by the Eurobureaucrats, and by those most forcibly expressing anti-Russian sentiments, the Baltic States, which have already imposed sanctions against about 20 people from the top of the Georgian ruling elite.
Meanwhile, on 14 December, star of the Russian football league as well as a former Manchester United and Basel player, was declared the winner of the presidential elections. He stood in proud isolation as all the other parties refused to nominate candidates. Kavelashvili was elected by a vote in parliament gaining 224 out of 300 votes. “The Russian football champion has become the president of Georgia,” boasts Russian media.
The situation is made more acute by the refusal of former Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili, whose term formally ended on 16 December, to resign from her presidential position. She continues to represent the country and people at meetings of European institutions, and with the American president. Notably, Zurabishvili was the first and so far the last president of Georgia elected by direct popular vote.
The Georgian opposition does not intervene in the protests, neither leading them, nor so far attempting to lead them. Having declared the election results illegitimate, they are boycotting the Parliament.
Zurabishvili, has a slightly different position. A former French diplomat from a family that fled Georgia after the Russian revolution she won the 2018 election as the candidate endorsed by “Georgian Dream” in opposition to the united opposition. She has since moved away, opposing its increasing moves in Russia’s direction. She has tried to veto attempts to restrict media freedoms and attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. Acting as a populist in Georgia, she is close to Macron and following a recent meeting with Trump declared: “The Georgian people have a friend in Donald Trump. God bless the United States of America.”
Although from the beginning, the protest has been mainly spontaneous with no recognised leader, Zurabishvili claims to represent it, defending it before the European Parliament, and before various political forces in the country and abroad.
The main demands of the protesters are the release of those detained and new elections. In conditions where ”Georgian Dream” has an absolute majority in parliament, and all the opposition parties have revoked their mandates, the situation is unclear. On the one hand, the ruling party is pushing through and will continue to push through increasingly repressive laws, on the other hand, the protesters will continue to undermine the authority of the current government, both in the eyes of the wider population and in those of the EU institutions, as well as paralyzing the economy.
At the same time the opposition parties have so far not benefited from these protests. Despite trying, they failed to achieve any political unity or present any viable programme to resolve Georgia’s problems before the election, and they have had no more success since. The main elements of the opposition are the “Coalition for Change”, a block of four pro-EU parties from the liberal/right wing/libertarian spectrum and the neo-liberal United National Movement linked to the former President Mikheil Saakashvili.
It is important too to understand the all-encompassing nature of these protests.
It is funny to see how opera singers, financiers, HR managers and coaches are protesting and going on strike. It is not surprising that this layer is striving to join the EU. Perhaps this is the only way to force a financier to protest. But the protests also include many students and school-students, and when the protesters marched on the city’s port the workers there walked out in solidarity.
However, we should not romanticize the events that are taking place. Perhaps, we are on the threshold of another “colour revolution,” or maybe the authorities will manage to suppress the discontent (or rather, the discontent will fizzle out on its own).
It should be obvious, however, that everything that is happening is a direct statement by the people, their cry for democracy, for a future as part of the rest of the world and for a decent life.
In the conditions of a deep crisis of consciousness due to the legacy of the bureaucratic Stalinist “socialism” in this post-Soviet country and a virtually complete vacuum on the left in Georgian politics, it is difficult for now to imagine a more left-wing event. Of course we have to worry that this movement is being used by “entrepreneurs”, and that there are demands for concessions from capital, but the unity and culture of collective action that is being forged in the process of this movement is far more valuable.
Tbilisi welcomed the achievement of EU candidate status a year ago with columns of cars waving flags. It was jubilation, but jubilation through rose-tinted glasses. While business would benefit from EU membership, the conditions demanded for membership by the EU behind the attractive ideas of “human rights”, “environmental protection” and “combating corruption” the whole neo-liberal project is designed to protect business at the expense of workers and youth, and to ensure that the only possible form of Georgian society is a capitalist “market economy”.
It is worth remembering that Serbia has been kept in this status since 2012. Now Georgia has no chance of joining either the EU or NATO. In part this is due to the current crises faced with the EU itself. But it is also because the EU will not agree membership as long as the problems of breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia remain unresolved.
These republics which broke away following the civil war and ethnic cleansing in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union are recognised only by Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Narau and Syria, but in recent weeks Abkhazia itself has been rocked by an uprising that forced the government to resign after it attempted to allow Russian business to buy up real estate.
The ruling party argued that only by finding a peaceful settlement of these issues would it be possible to ensure peace as the most correct and direct path to the EU. To do this it has attempted to appease the Kremlin.
This position has been promoted by Bidzina Ivanishvili – a Georgian oligarch, owner of palaces and villas, whose business interests are mainly in Russia. Although he is honorary chairman of the ”Georgian Dream”, he does not hold any government positions, but literally at the moment of writing these lines is talking to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, and has also recently discussed the prospects for Georgia’s European future with Macron.
In this context, the sharp turn from European integration to an open orientation towards the interests of the oligarchs and, as a consequence, the “ Northern Federation” – Russia – in this sense is quite understandable and indicative.
The Georgian authorities’ attack on freedom of demonstrations is causing anger and pain. The Special Legislative Operation to ban masks, gas masks, laser pointers and pyrotechnics has already generated lots of jokes, although there is certainly nothing to laugh about. Cameras will be installed in Georgia which can recognize faces, gender, age, emotions and facial expressions. In addition, there will be cameras with artificial intelligence and the ability to search for targets. Although such measures are part of a global trend, in the context of Georgia such measures are perceived as the Russification of the domestic political climate.
Meanwhile, to undermine the protests, Tbilisi Mayor Kaladze talks about children who are in need of a holiday, and therefore today it is absolutely necessary to light a Christmas tree in front of the Parliament, where everything is still soaked with tear gas, while, those same children are playing football in front of the water cannons on Freedom Square two hundred meters from this Christmas tree.
Citizens, men and women, workers of all professions have been coming out to protest, some carrying EU and Georgian flags. Sometimes you can also see flags of the USA, Ukraine, Germany, and the Belarusian opposition.
In the atmosphere of continuing night arrests, ”Georgian Dream” has prepared amendments to the law on civil service, adopted (like all recent laws) in a rushed manner. No longer will department heads and their deputies in the civil service be required to know the state language and be Georgian citizens at all. It is, of course, unlikely that Russian functionaries will be appointed to these positions immediately, but the presence of such “gaps” in the legislation in the current conditions cannot but be alarming and only fuels anti-government sentiments among the people, confirming their fears about national independence being in danger. It is reported that this means that the decision to hire a Georgian citizen, a native speaker of the state language, etc. will depend on a specific official.
Regardless of how the confrontation between the Georgian state and the Georgian people will end, the influence on society and its perception of the authorities has already been exerted. After the police reform of 2004, the whole world trumpeted about the amazingly competent, open and people-oriented Georgian police. Now, an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is perceived as a “titushka”, a Russian slave and an enemy of his own people. People are now worried about letting employees of energy providers into their homes for fear the police will use them to break into apartments for subsequent arrest.
Without a doubt, we cannot ignore the interest of the European bureaucrats, Western oligarchs and capitalists in this movement. In any case, as long as there is no independent working class organisation intervening in these protests, the national bourgeois, whether supported by European, Chinese or Russia interests will continue to fight to control the Georgian economy.
What is much more important in these events for the left is the unification of Georgian society against repression and reactionary laws, unity in a common will for democracy and independence as opposed to the worship of tyrants and fat cats whether on the other side of the mountains, or across the Black Sea.
The political outlook of these Georgians may be naive, but their will and spirit, their desire to gain freedom are worthy of respect. The left will have to get along with the fact that mass political movements are not quite what they want them to be and look like, and they start out under the wrong flags. Our task though is to understand what is happening, and offer a programme and demands for the movement that help to break the illusions in any capitalist way forward, instead building an independent working class movement capable of ensuring an independent and democratic Georgia with a genuinely socialist economy working in the interests of the Georgian people.
We need to fight for:
- An end to the “Russian law”, the attacks on LGBTQ+ and womens’ rights;
- Release all those detained and all political prisoners, for the removal of all repressive technology – cameras etc;
- The organisation of the opposition movement through democratically elected committees;
- For new elections – no confidence in “Georgian Dream” or the opposition parties: build an alliance of democratic committees of action, workers’ organisations, feminist, LGBTQ+ and environment groups to stand candidates against the pro-capitalist parties;
- For the natural resources and industry to be taken out of the hands of the foreign and Georgian oligarchs and into public ownership managed and controlled democratically in the interests of the Georgian people;
- Against Russian and all imperialist intervention in Georgia, for a genuinely democratic, independent Georgia as part of a wider federation of democratic and equal socialist states of Europe and the wider world.