As Georgia slides into authoritarianism, protesters vow to keep fighting Russian pivot

London (CNN) — Two years ago, two days of protests were enough to force Georgia’s government into an embarrassing U-turn. It had tried to introduce a “foreign agents” bill – which critics likened to legislation passed by President Vladimir Putin to stifle dissent in Russia – but backed down after fierce demonstrations sparked by the bill’s first reading.

“We fought it off like hell, used every instrument at our disposal,” recalls Ana Tavazde, one of tens of thousands who demonstrated against the bill, which would have forced media and other organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence” or be fined.

But the protesters’ victory was short-lived. The government revived the bill last year – and this time would not back down. The parliament approved it in May, despite huge opposition on the streets.

After the ruling Georgian Dream party – which declared victory anew after a disputed election in October – delayed the country’s long-awaited European Union membership bid until 2028, Tavazde was one of thousands of Georgians to take to the streets once again. The government invested in water cannons, according to local media reports, and started making mass arrests.

Since then, Georgia’s government has shown little sign of shifting its course, which many in the former Soviet country feel is taking the country back into the Kremlin’s orbit. And with the protest movement now approaching its third month, it is not clear what can break the stalemate.

Multiple opposition politicians have been publicly beaten, some in broad daylight. Hundreds of protesters have been arrested, of whom more than 300 allege suffering beatings, torture and other ill-treatment at the hands of law enforcement, according to Amnesty International. The police’s presence at rallies has been bolstered by masked men, who do not wear uniforms displaying their department and rank.

The Georgian government has not responded to CNN’s request for comment on the allegations of ill treatment of protesters and the introduction of new laws restricting the right to protest.

Extreme measures

Georgian Dream has been in control since 2012, but protesters told CNN that recent years have felt like a rapid shift toward authoritarian rule.

Lincoln Mitchell, a political analyst who teaches in Columbia University’s political science department and is a former adviser to Georgian Dream, agreed. “As late as February 2024, you could have said: At the end of the day, they’re not really doing anything about democratic reforms, but they’re kind of leaving the people alone enough that they’ll win the election,” he told CNN.

“Today, almost a year later, you would say this has become a really nasty authoritarian regime.”

Pro-Western Salome Zourabichvili, who described the elections as “rigged” and called on Georgians to protest in October, was replaced as president by far-right former soccer star Mikheil Kavelashvili in mid-December. The government imposed further restrictions on freedom of assembly at the end of the year.

At the start of February, it proposed more extreme measures that would increase detention periods and fines for certain offenses, such as disorderly conduct or disobeying law enforcement officers, and limit the areas in which protests can be held, local outlet OC Media reported.

On February 5, the party announced it would be introducing unspecified laws targeted at the media and civil society and expelled 49 opposition MPs from Parliament. Three Georgian Dream MPs resigned, supposedly to form a new “healthy opposition ” – with the approval of the ruling party’s parliamentary speaker. On the same day, the prime minister called for “a sort of Nuremburg trial” to investigate the rule of UNM, the opposition party which governed from 2003 to 2012. The Georgian government has been approached for comment, but did not respond.

Journalist Mzia Amaglobeli is facing up to seven years in prison if convicted of assaulting a police officer. The founder of two independent publications, Batumelebi and Netgazeti, she was detained after allegedly slapping a police officer at a protest last month. The European Parliament has claimed Amaglobeli was “unlawfully arrested” and that the charges against her are “politically motivated.”

Soon after her detention, Amaglobeli started a hunger strike, which she has now been on for 34 days. According to her lawyers, Amaglobeli is “on hunger strike not only for herself, but for all political prisoners.”

When asked on February 4 how Amaglobeli’s hunger strike could end, Georgian Dream’s chairman said: “Hunger usually leads to death.”

“Now journalists are afraid of going to the rallies or going outside,” her colleague at Batumelebi, Irma Dimitrazde, told CNN. “This is clearly Russia’s (influence) right now for me.”

The International Federation of Journalists has urged the Georgian government to “release Amaglobeli immediately and to stop its crackdown on journalists and independent media.”

Staying on the winning side

For many in this ex-Soviet country, the idea of pivoting towards Russia – which invaded in 2008 and continues to occupy 20% of Georgia’s territory – is unthinkable. Over 80% support EU membership, according to polls, and every party’s campaign platform for the October election included the pursuit of EU membership. Campaign posters for Georgian Dream even merged its logo with the gold stars of the EU flag.

So why has the government turned away from such a popular policy?

“I think that they have calculated that, at the end of the day, support from Moscow is better for them than support from Washington. And – not from an ethical point of view, but from a tactical – I’m not sure they’re wrong,” Mitchell told CNN. “The US has cut off all assistance – not just to Georgia, but to everyone,” he said, referring to the Trump administration’s decision to freeze almost all foreign aid.

“I think he just kind of assumes that Moscow is going to win this war,” Mitchell added, referring to Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgian Dream’s founder and honorary chairman.

“And he’s going to stay on the winning side.”

Bidzina Ivanishvili made his fortune in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union in Russia in the 1990s and is estimated by Bloomberg to be worth $7.7 billion – a quarter of Georgia’s GDP in 2023. Protesters, some of whom have donned masks of his face at protests, see him as pushing Moscow’s agenda in this ex-Soviet country despite no longer holding any elected position.

“He’s fully in charge, and he’s involved in the daily operations and the daily decision making,” Tamar Chugoshvili – who worked as Ivanishvili’s assistant while he was prime minister from 2013 to 2014 – told CNN. “There is no doubt about that. That has been the case always.” The United States condemned and sanctioned Ivanishvili on December 27, claiming he undermined “the democratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia for the benefit of the Russian Federation.”

Ivanishvili and Georgian Dream did not respond to CNN’S request for comment. On January 8, Georgian Dream said that the decision of several states to impose sanctions is because of the “deep state” and should “be assessed as an anti-Georgian step that undermines the trust of Georgian society in Western institutions.”

Chugoshvili was one of several Georgian Dream politicians who resigned in 2019 after the parliament did not pass an amendment which would have made the electoral system fully proportional. “It was obvious that (Georgian Dream) was becoming obsessed with control,” said Chugoshvili, who co-founded Egeria Solutions, an NGO which has worked on European integration projects, after leaving the party.

“Georgian Dream and Bidzina plan to stay in power for ever. And they cannot do this while integrating into the EU and NATO.”

The freeze in foreign aid announced by the Trump administration has also damaged civil society, Nate Ostiller, editor at OC Media, told CNN. USAID affiliates partially funded the independent publication, which has called for reader donations to support it after the freeze.

“Some local outlets are totally funded by USAID or affiliated organisations,” said Ostiller.

“They have no back-up, no savings. They will close, and if funding returns, reopening them will be far more difficult.”

Culture war rhetoric

In a country where the conservative Georgian Orthodox Church exerts massive influence, Ivanishvili has also leaned into “culture war” politics, observers say.

In the run-up to the election, he claimed in an interview with a Georgian TV station that in some countries in the West “they are putting sanitary towels in men’s bathrooms,” “men’s milk is the same as women’s milk,” and “you shouldn’t say whether someone is a woman or a man”. Ivanishvili also claimed that “all sorts of orgies take place in the street” during Barcelona’s Pride events. Tamar Jakeli, head of Tbilisi Pride, told CNN: “Georgian Dream is using homophobia very strategically as a tool.”

The results of last year’s elections, in which Georgian Dream claimed to receive about 54% of the vote, have been widely disputed; however, the party undoubtedly still has some support.

“It’s probably got a solid 35 to 45%,” Mitchell estimated. “They’re popular enough that they still have a base.”

But for a younger generation, who have only known Georgia as committed to EU and NATO membership and Russia as a threat, the anti-Western rhetoric doesn’t seem to land, and the government’s moves towards authoritarianism don’t seem to inspire fear. Protests are continuing into their third month.

Zviad Robakidze, who said he was arrested at a demonstration in January and detained for 10 days, told CNN: “They think that they would frighten us with this method, but they don’t. They just give us more motivation.”

Since protests broke out on November 28, Keren Esebua has been on the streets almost every night in Zugdidi – a city located just 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Abkhazia, a breakaway Georgian region occupied by Russia since 2008.

After covering her face at a protest – illegal under new legislation – she says authorities detained her for 48 hours and fined her 5,000 lari: more than double an average monthly salary. She’s refusing to pay. And when asked by CNN if the reported attacks on protesters made her less likely to demonstrate, she laughed.

“I lost my home in Sukhumi, in Abkhazia, in 1993. And I was here in Zugdidi, blocking the way for Russian troops in 2008 when I was 19.

“I’m not giving Russia any kind of opportunity to swallow up Georgia again.”

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