Author : Zurab Chiaberashvili
Russian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili and the executors of his will, Georgian Dream, used an unprecedented large-scale electoral manipulation scheme to rig the parliamentary elections on 26 October 2024 and usurp power (see Hans Gutbrod’s article for details) . The scheme involved not only the Central Election Commission, but also various state and public institutions: the State Security Service, the police, the education system, municipal authorities, and the judiciary. As per tradition, the State Security Service and the police actively enlisted the help of the criminal world.
The ruling group violated the secrecy of the vote and even campaigned that the vote was not secret, ensuring that bribed and/or intimidated voters would not dare mark anything other than “41”. They took complete control of the election administration, effectively abolished the marking process at polling stations and facilitated voting through registrars using other people’s ID cards and/or personal numbers (mainly of those living abroad). Using fake observer organizations, they rounded up Georgian Dream activists at polling stations to prevent impartial observers from monitoring the election process and responding to mass violations.
Such a scale of electoral manipulation reinforces the already deep-rooted belief among Georgian voters that it is impossible to remove the usurper oligarch from power through elections. However, this scale of manipulation creates a new challenge: sceptics of Georgia’s rapid EU membership are given an argument as to whether the European culture of legality exists in a society where thousands of members participate in such large-scale electoral manipulation.
The usurpation of power by Ivanishvili also carries the risk that the outcome of such elections will look as if the Russian narrative of the Georgian Dream has won, as if Georgian voters have chosen the Russian swamp over European prosperity. Consequently, if the usurper remains in power, Russian influence in Georgia will increase: the end of the European foreign policy course will be officially formalized, and internal governance will become even more authoritarian and repressive. Ivanishvili will think he can get away with anything—from betraying Georgia’s national interests to completely destroying citizens’ civil and political rights.
The greatest danger in this chain of events is the de jure violation of Georgia’s territorial integrity. While it has been de facto violated, it remains intact de jure due to the post-World War II international liberal order and the political and economic support provided to Georgia by its guarantors, the United States and the European Union.
Without political support from the United States and the European Union, Georgia will be unable to effectively uphold its policy of non-recognition of the territories occupied by Russia. Many countries in the Global South resist Russian pressure to recognize the “independence” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia solely because they take the West’s position into account. If Georgia distances itself from the West and loses the political backing of the United States and the European Union, nothing will prevent these countries from succumbing to Russian pressure.
Moreover, if Russia no longer sees the West as a counterbalance in Georgia, the Georgian government—even if we entertain the absurd notion that Russian oligarch Ivanishvili cares about Georgia’s national interest—will be left with no resources to resist Moscow. Russia will then be able to maneuver Tbilisi into a legal trap regarding its relations with the occupied regions, leading to the loss of Georgia’s sovereignty over Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region.
Under such circumstances, legitimizing Ivanishvili’s usurped power by entering the so-called parliament is entirely unacceptable. Doing so would not only extinguish every spark of resistance to the usurper within the country but also undermine the United States and the European Union’s policy of non-recognition of the October 26 parliamentary elections. In the long run, it would deprive Georgia’s patriotic forces of crucial allies in the West.
Refusing to enter the so-called parliament is a necessary but insufficient step for Georgia and its allies to resist Putin’s ally and usurper, Bidzina Ivanishvili. Only national unity and civil consensus can save us from the impending national catastrophe. When we failed to achieve this in 1991 and allowed a civil war to unfold, it led not only to the overthrow of the national government that had won the first multi-party elections but also to the loss of de facto control over Georgia’s sovereign territories, the country’s descent into chaos, and mass emigration.
The 1991-1993 civil war and the impossibility of reaching a consensus serve as the archetype of our political consciousness. Kobakhidze’s “Constitution” is designed and/or interpreted by the regime in such a way that it does not require the consent of competing political parties to legitimize the newly elected parliament, securing 76 MPs is enough for it to begin functioning. If the regime had considered political consensus necessary to recognize the authority of the new parliament, it would not have orchestrated such a large-scale electoral fraud.
National unity and civil consensus require institutional formalization, especially now in the face of entrenched authoritarianism and impending repression. The strong likelihood that the usurper will seize the institution of the presidency further underscores the need for the four political groups, empowered by the people’s mandate, to form a unified structure and speak with one voice on behalf of the Georgian people, both domestically and internationally. In the future, after the restoration of democracy, this would serve as an important precedent for coalition building.
In the 2024 elections, for the first time in 12 years, the practice of the two main political forces—Georgian Dream and the United National Movement—opposing each other was broken. The pro-Western political spectrum became more diverse, and in addition to the United National Movement, three other political groups received a mandate of confidence from the electorate. This would have been a natural phenomenon in a democratic system, but against the background of the usurpation of power and the expected Russian-style repression, it has become more all the more urgent to achieve what was not achieved before the elections—unity under one umbrella against the Ivanishvili regime. It is worth remembering that the Rose Revolution erased the boundaries between the political parties that ran separately in the 2003 elections but still had to “stand in the rain” together. And those parties that preferred to stay away from the common cause irrevocably lost electoral support.
Setting aside party politics is certainly not a good sign. No matter how much we say, “Temporarily!” or “Until the usurper is removed from power!”, there will always be those who justifiably get outraged: Nothing is as permanent as “temporary” measures. However, it must be considered that if Ivanishvili’s regime survives the post-election turmoil, it will be vitally important for the four opposition political groups and their supporters to formalize the mandate they received in the October 26 elections, even if these elections were massively falsified, as the alternative structure of the “parliament”.
One of the key phrases in the public speeches of the usurper Ivanishvili, “I have decoded the mechanism of the human self-preservation instinct, its structure”, also contains the regime’s self-preservation mechanism. This mechanism is based on the hope that the forces fighting against the regime won’t be able to unite. If the usurper is wrong in this main expectation, the possibility of removing him from power will increase significantly.
