Is mobocracy the criterion on the basis of which the government of a country can be changed or ousted? Is a government set up by people in the streets through the intimidation of legitimate authorities going to be a global norm?
After the unprecedented success of this model in bringing about a change of government in Bangladesh, the West, led by the United States and European Union, seems interested in repeating this strategy in Georgia. The parliamentary elections held on October 26 failed to unseat the incumbent and supposedly pro-Moscow regime in Tbilisi.
If mobocracy succeeds in Georgia, the connector country between the Eurasian interior and Europe, a former part of the Soviet Union and the birthplace of Stalin (of all the post-Soviet republics, this is the country where a significant number of people have nostalgia for the Soviet era), and a vital part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, the world may witness another Ukraine-like situation. And that, in turn, will have serious geopolitical implications.
Georgia’s population may be only 3.7 million, but it is strategically highly significant. It lies on the southern border of Russia and to the north of Iran. It is also a transit route for energy pipelines to Europe, an alternate route from the Caspian region, avoiding the Russian landmass.
According to the latest Georgian constitution, the President is the ceremonial head of state, and the Prime Minister is the head of government. The Prime Minister and the Government wield executive power. Legislative power is vested in both the Government and the unicameral Parliament of Georgia.
However, Georgian President Salome Zourabich says she does not believe in the results of the elections, in which Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhdize’s “Georgian Dream “party secured 54 percent of the votes.
The opposition will now hold 61 seats in the 150-seat parliament, while Georgian Dream will have 89 – a majority but not big enough to enact the kind of constitutional change that Kobakhdize had promised during the electioneering.
But Zourabich is unhappy that the “pro-Moscow” Georgian Dream has stolen the elections to prevent the Georgians from integrating with Europe. She has accused Russia of interfering in the vote without giving details.
“There is no alternative European integration,” she said at a protest rally that she had called for on the 28th evening at Rustaveli Street in front of the Presidential palace.
Terming the election results as ” total falsification,” she asked the opposition parties not to take their parliamentary seats and to ensure the installation of a pro-Western government with the help of the U.S. and European Union.
In other words, Georgia’s President, the ceremonial head of the country, wants that the mob in the streets of Tbilisi, not the people from all parts of the country through ballot boxes, must dictate the formation of the next government, which, again, has to be pro-West and prepared to fight Russia.
Predictably, the US and European Union have seen merit in what the Georgian President, representing the country’s opposition parties, says. Though they have not outrightly rejected the election results, they have called for “an independent investigation.” The EU leaders and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken have called for a probe while condemning “contraventions of international norms.”
Incidentally, Western leaders and media have pointed out that the electioneering was unequal, with opposition parties paling into insignificance because of the enormous financial power of the ruling Georgian Dream, whose supreme leader is Bidzina Ivanishvili, a former Prime Minister, and the country’s richest man.
But then, neutral international observers believed that though elections were marred by an uneven playing field, pressure, and tension, voters in Georgia were offered a wide choice. Even correspondents of the Western media covering the elections had invariably predicted that a splintered opposition was no match for the ruling Georgian Dream, whose victory was certain.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the main international observer mission, described Election Day as “generally procedurally well organized and administered in an orderly manner but marked by a tense environment.”
According to Pascal Allizard, Special Coordinator and leader of the OSCE short-term observer mission, “Imbalances in financial resources, a divisive campaign atmosphere, and recent legislative amendments were of significant concern throughout this election process. Yet the engagement shown on Election Day—from the active voter participation, robust presence of citizen and party observers, and rich diversity of voices—gives the sign of a system that is still growing and evolving, with a democratic vitality under construction.”
Thus, it is clear that Kobakhidze has renewed his popular mandate electorally, not forcibly, through ballots, not bullets.
Ironically, when it assumed power in 2012, the Georgian Dream was not exactly a pro-Russian party. In fact, it came to office after another pro-West government, led by Mikheil Saakashvili, had been in power for nine long years. However, that government got mired by scandals, which led to wide-scale protests, resulting in the Georgian Dream’s eventual electoral success.
The party is committed to “restoring the territorial integrity of Georgia in a peaceful way” following Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, which came months after NATO had said that both Georgia and Ukraine would one day become members. Within a week, Russia subdued the Georgian forces in the pro-Moscow enclave of South Ossetia. Russia then recognized both South Ossetia and Georgia’s Black Sea region of Abkhazia as independent.
Significantly, Georgia, under this “pro-Russian” government, had applied for EU membership in March 2022. The same month, Georgia had also supported the UN resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
However, the government led by the Georgian Dream says that if it has not endorsed the Western sanctions on Russia, that is due to ground realities. It says that Georgia cannot afford adversarial relations with Moscow.
All told gas imports from Russia account for over 20 percent of Georgia’s total gas imports, although most of the country’s gas supplies still come from Azerbaijan. Two-thirds of wine exports, which play a major role in the Georgian economy, are destined for Russia.
Russia is very important for the Georgian economy. In 2023, Georgia received USD 3.1 billion from Russia through remittances, tourism, and exports of goods. Thanks to the growing number of Russian migrants settling in Georgia, remittances from Russia to Georgia totaled $1.5 billion in 2023.
Russia’s share of total remittances in Georgia was 37% in 2023. Reportedly, Russian citizens registered 11,552 companies in Georgia in 2023. As of December 31, 2023, up to 34,000 companies were registered by Russians in Georgia. Russian FDI in Georgia reached $67 million in January-September 2023, up 17% from the same period in 2022, with significant investments in the finance, insurance, and real estate sectors.
Nevertheless, Georgia is seeking to avoid becoming too economically dependent on Russia. Its main trading partner remains the EU, accounting for 20.9 percent of the volume of trade, followed by Turkey (13.8 percent) and Russia (11.1 percent).
At the same time, Georgia, which gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, has long been balancing the pro-European sentiment of many of its citizens and the geopolitical compulsions of having stable relations with Russia. All told, Russian forces are still present in the breakaway Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Against this background, Georgia’s ruling party portrayed last week’s elections as an existential choice between war and peace. It opposed President Salome Zourabichvili’s pro-Western views, the logical conclusion of which was to open a “second front” against Moscow after Ukraine.
Incidentally, the ruling party projected the opposition as “agents of foreign influence” and supporters of a foreign-organized “Global War Party” that allegedly seeks to prolong the war in Ukraine, open another front against Russia from Georgia, and back “pseudo-liberal” ideologies such as support for LGBTQ+ rights.
In its appeal to voters, Georgian Dream cited the controversial opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris as an example of why Georgia needed another new law to protect family values and minors.
“The parliamentary elections of 2024 are a kind of referendum in which the Georgian people must finally decide if they will choose war or peace, moral degradation or traditional values, slavish dependence on external forces or an independent and sovereign state,” it said, arguing that only its re-election can balance relations with the EU, America, and Russia.
The promise of peace has been central to the Georgian Dream and Prime Minister Ivanishvili’s messaging since the party came to power after winning parliamentary elections in October 2012.
This mood for peace among the voters was reflected in many media interviews during the electioneering. After all, it was under the previous government, led by President Mikheil Saakashvili, that Georgia suffered a punishing defeat in the 2008 war over South Ossetia.
Thus, it is understandable when Donald N. Jensen, a senior advisor for Russia and Europe at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., says that “Georgia may end up in a grey area of not complete obeisance to Russia, but an area in which it does have this kind of multi-vector foreign policy, which has it going in several ways at once.”
He then adds, “That may be where a lot of these countries are going. “
To overlook that and insist on having a pro-West government, come what may, is not promoting democracy but mobocracy.
- Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
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