Determing Post-Election period in Georgia

The 2024 Georgian elections have already taken place. A few hours after the polling stations closed, the governing party, Georgian Dream, already claimed victory over the pro-western opposition. “More than a million of our citizens came to the polling stations and supported peace, our country’s truly bright and European future”, stated Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze. While the opposition denies the results, the CEC-Central Electoral Council- supports the claims of victory by the Georgian Dream. “The elections took place in a peaceful and free environment” are the declarations made by Giorgi Kalandarishvili, the Chairman of the CEC. Foreign leaders, like Victor Orban from Hungary, or the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian have already congratulated Irakli Kobakhidze and the Georgian Dream for their alleged victory.

 

Both, the opposition and the international observers’ organizations, had meetings with the President, Salome Zurabishvili, on the following day. “We had a very important meeting with the president. We have intensive consultations that will continue in the next few hours. I hope that there will be complete unity on the pro-Western opposition front”, informed Tina Bokuchava, the chairman of "Unity - National Movement". The role played by the president has been crucial since she departed from the current governing party. President Zurabishvili has distanced herself from the democratic backsliding that the Georgian Dream has represented. Initiatives like the Charter to Unify the opposition, reflect her goal of the role of mediator between different parties of the present coalition. At the press conference held at 19:00, the president Salome accompanied by the opposition leaders,  clearly stated “I want to say, as the only independent institution, that I don’t recognize these elections. These elections cannot be recognized. We won’t accept this.” She added: “We are going to stand together and say: We will not accept this new form of subjugation by Russia”. These declarations are a clear signal of what the near future of Georgia may look like: division.

 

The organization GYLA (Georgian Young Lawyers Association), among others, have monitored the polling procedures across the country, reporting cases of flaws, obstructions and violations during the celebration of the elections. “The voting day for the parliamentary elections on October 26, 2024, occurred against a backdrop of significant violations, primarily in an unequal, violent, and tense environment,” stated Nona Kurdovanidze, head of GYLA. In contrast, along with the success of the newly implemented electronic system, the Head of the CEC has reiterated that “We had an immediate response to various highlighted issues, which did not affect the election process and especially the results”. 

 

The press conference held by the joint observation mission formed by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA), and the European Parliament (EP) noted deepening political divisions, as well as a significant imbalance in financial resources and the many advantages taken by the ruling party contributed to an already uneven playing field. Still, the main outcome of the head of the missions is clear: the relevance of the post-electoral period will be crucial, and an exhaustive monitoring of the process that will be unfolded in the following days will determine the outcome of the elections.

 

Considering the polarized pre-electoral environment, the results coming from the elections do not provide a unitary and stable framework for the upcoming days. Similarities with the 2020 Parliamentary elections confirm the tense path that Georgia is now transiting once more. The opposition -which is not just constituted by one party but by a coalition- already claimed in 2020 the illegitimacy of the results, arguing that the electoral process had been violated. Still, the divided environment has not just endured, as it has even grown in the last four years. Several legislative modifications in issues like LGBTQ rights, migrants or the well-known foreign agents’ law -very similar to the one approved in Russia- have increased even more the differences between the two main discourses.

 

Still, the strongest argument for the governing party was the plebiscite character of the elections, in which a dichotomy between peace and war -and not democracy or autocracy- has been presented to the Georgian population. The Georgian Dream Party has pushed the so-called conspiracy theory about the “Global War Party”. According to it, Western institutions and governments have exerted major influence in the country, instigating events like the 2008 Russia-Georgia War, the initial failure in 2022 to attain EU candidate status, and the United States' refusal to allow four Georgian judicial officials to enter the country in April 2023. Accordingly, the current war in Ukraine has been used as the next conflict in which the “Global War Party” can drive the country into. Moreover, the coalition does not enjoy a healthy reputation, as the lack of transparency that resulted in corruption was the main reason for the voters to take them out of the government back in 2012. 

 

The October 26^th election’s results do not clear the doubts that the pre-electoral environment posed, as their results have not been recognized by one vital part. Even so, the upcoming days and weeks will determine the future of Georgia. For now, Irakli Kobakhidze has already interpreted the reports from the international observers as a confirmation of his win. “This press conference made it clear that there are no doubts or question marks regarding the legitimacy of the election”, said the leader of the Georgian Dream Party. In any case, the refusal by other leaders like Nana Malashkhia has been clear, “we are not going to legitimise the stolen votes of the Georgian people, we are giving up our parliamentary mandates”, supporting Zourabichvili’s positioning towards the results. In any case, it will be in November when the final report of the CEC will be published, and the complaints and violations issued by the observers and parties resolved.

 

Georgia may seem like a little country where no more than four million people live. Nonetheless, the geopolitical bridge between the Caspian and the Black Sea the Caucasus, attracts attention from major powers in the international arena. Its accession process to the European Union may have suffered from a backslide trend during the last years, but the world already knows what the potential Western allies in the gates of the Heartland receive as a response from the Kremlin.