(Adnkronos) – Parliamentary elections will be held on the 26th in Georgia, a country divided after months of street protests against the ‘Russian’ legislative measures introduced by the government, the law on organizations considered ‘foreign agents’ and the one on family values and the protection of minors, in fact the ban on the expression of ideas of LGBTQ orientation, which in both cases the pro-European President Salomé Zurabishvili had refused to sign without being able to prevent them from entering into force.
Georgian Dream, the ruling party of the ambiguous billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili – who amassed his fortune in Russia in the 1990s – presents the vote as a choice between war and peace. The streets of Tbilisi are plastered with posters with side-by-side images, in black and white, of Ukraine in ruins, with the caption “No to war” and, in color, of a prosperous and happy Georgia with the inscription “Choose peace.” The avenue of a bombed-out city in Ukraine next to the newly renovated Chavchavadze Avenue in Tbilisi, a stadium destroyed by bombs in Ukraine next to one of the new arenas inaugurated by the government in Georgia.
“On October 26, we will decide between war and peace,” Ivanishvili explicitly stated at a rally in recent days. And it is unclear whether it is just an unscrupulous election campaign or the sinister reminder of what could happen if the pro-Western opposition wins the election.
Many are shocked by this election campaign in Georgia, which has not forgotten the terrible period of civil war in the early 1990s, the blitzkrieg with Russia in 2008, and Moscow’s role in 20 percent of the country’s territory, with the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia sovereign by choice recognized only by Moscow and a few other countries. The gist of the message, however, is to blame Ukrainians for the war triggered by the 2022 Russian invasion. “I have never seen anything so shameful and offensive to our culture, to our traditions, history and beliefs,” the President said.
Georgian Dream avoids explicitly talking about Russia in its political discourse. But it has not taken a stand against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and does not adhere to the international sanctions introduced after the start of the war. But one of the central themes of the election campaign is that it is the only political force capable of managing the cumbersome neighbor to the north.
Georgian Dream was founded from scratch just months before its first elections, which it won in October 2012, accusing of having provoked the Russian invasion, not without reason, Mikhail Saakashvili – who, counting on winning with his UNM the vote in the parliamentary elections at the end of his two terms as president, had reformed the Constitution to take powers away from the president and entrust them to the prime minister.
Now Georgian Dream promises to regain control of the two breakaway regions and territorial integrity and eliminate poverty “thanks to changes in the regional political situation,” as Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhdize recently stated, hinting at the unlikely development of a Russia willing to relinquish control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia if Tbilisi renounces a process of integration with NATO and the European Union supported by the United National Movement, the main opposition party that was led by Saakashvili (who, since his return to Georgia in October 2021, has been imprisoned, in poor health, serving a six-year sentence for abuse of office, largely politically motivated). The solution could be the creation of a confederation with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as autonomous regions, in fact always under Moscow’s control.
Georgian Dream assures that it wants to integrate Georgia into the EU even though the controversial laws it has enacted in recent months have in fact alienated it from it and threatens, as it did last August, to ban the United National Movement,” that is, the UNM and the galaxy of pro-Western groups)
Also last August, Russia’s foreign intelligence services (SVR) denounced an alleged U.S. effort to provoke a “Maidan” in Georgia – where, moreover, protest demonstrations have been underway since last year – and bring the opposition to power even if Georgian Dream were to win the election.
The United States is working to “prevent forces with a national and healthy orientation” from staying in power, SVR Director Sergei Naryshkin added earlier this month.
“I am sure that the Georgians will make the right choice,” he concluded. Ivanishvili shows he has heard the message when he promises “Nuremberg trials” for the “fascist” opposition.
