Five Minutes from Autocracy: Georgia's U-turn from its Western Path

Four of the eight main opposition coalitions won seats in Georgia's Parliament just over a month ago. All but one of the eight leaders are either in prison, exiled or facing criminal charges. The ruling party wants to outright ban the main opposition groups.

Many in the tiny South Caucasus nation of 3.7 millions have been shocked by the slide towards one-party rule. Georgia was a democratic country that appeared to be on the rise in the years after the fall of the Soviet Union. It seemed poised to join the EU, and escape Russia's influence.

Brussels' assessment, however, says that it is now further away from the West today than ever before in its post-Soviet past. It describes its democratic institutions and courts as being under the thumb of state.

In a report published this month, the EU stated that Georgia is now a candidate to join "in name only". The EU ambassador to Tbilisi stated that Georgia is no longer a candidate for membership in the EU.

Senior Georgian politicians and diplomats who were interviewed about recent events said that it appeared as though Georgia was close to a point beyond which it would be difficult for democracy to recover.

"We are five minutes from a one-party dictatorship," Sergi Kapanadze said, a former vice foreign minister and deputy speaker of the parliamentary until 2020.

"DEMOCRATISATION MEANS YOU WILL LOSE THE POWER AT SOME POINT"

Natalie Sabanadze said that despite decades of sometimes caustic internal political disputes, there was always a political consensus in Georgia that it belongs to the West. This has now been lost.

She said that the Georgian Dream Party, the ruling party, knows that democratisation - which the EU requires - means accepting the fact that you will eventually lose power. "They don’t want that. They are building an authoritarian system.

Georgian Dream claims it protects the country against opposition figures that are attempting to seize control and incite a war with Russia.

The fear became tangible after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. This evoked memories of Russian tanks rolling through the suburbs in Tbilisi, in an embarrassing defeat by Moscow during a short war in 2008.

Nino Tsilosani is a lawmaker from the ruling party who serves as deputy speaker of parliament. He said, "Georgia has a unique peace within a geopolitical area that's very challenging." "What businesses and investors need is stability."

She accused opposition politicians in jail of plotting a coup. The opposition parties deny these accusations as fabrications to justify a crackdown.

Bidzina ivanishvili, the billionaire founder of Georgian Dream, is portrayed by opponents as the cause of the shift to authoritarianism. Some accuse him to be in league with Russia where he made his fortune in 1990s.

Gia Khukhashvili who was Ivanishvili’s top advisor and helped launch the party before parting ways with him in 2013 said that it is wrong to see his former boss as being subservient towards Moscow. Ivanishvili, however, sees only a "coincidence" of interests between the two countries.

"He knows that he will need an older brother in this ocean full of sharks. Who is the elder brother? "It can only be Russia," Khukhashvili replied.

ECONOMY TAKES A TURN TOWARDS RUSSIA AND CHINA

Georgia, strategically located on the Black Sea, is a region that's crossed by oil and natural gas pipelines. In theory, this could play a key role in the West’s plan to divert energy and trade away from Russia.

Georgia's rapid growth was fueled by its investor-friendly policies and political shift towards the West.

This openness is now rapidly reversing, with foreign direct investments falling in the last two years to levels not seen since the early 2000s.

The economy has remained stable, thanks to a flood of Russian IT workers and businesses into Georgia following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. The World Bank predicts that Georgia's GDP will grow by 7% in this year after growing 9.4% in last year.

Construction of a deep water port on the Black Sea, a key transit hub between Asia and Europe, has been largely stalled after a Western-led group was kicked out of the project. Since then, a Chinese company won the contract. However, progress in building the port is minimal.

Georgia imports 45% of the oil it uses from Russia. This is up from 8% in 2012. Tbilisi has no diplomatic relations with Moscow.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Georgia Ian Kelly said that the West could have done much more to strengthen ties with Tbilisi.

He said, "We're blowing this." "Georgia opened the door to Russia and China."

SPEED CHESS

Georgian Dream, in recent weeks has taken a number of measures to eliminate any remaining political dissension.

The Constitutional Court is preparing to ban three of the main opposition parties. Meanwhile, new criminal charges brought against nine opposition figures, including the jailed former president Mikheil Saakashvili, will keep potential opponents behind bars for many years.

Recently, criminal charges have been filed against former Georgian Dream founder Ivanishvili and senior government ministers.

The government is moving so fast that Kapanadze (the former deputy speaker) compared the situation to a game of "speed chess", where the opposition is trying to avoid checkmate and hoping that the government will make tactical mistakes.

The arrests of political activists at the nightly protests against the government outside parliament keeps them in a state of fear, despair and resignation. Dozens of people are in prison or have been fined after blocking the road.

"Georgia is gone, not only from the European table but also from the world stage," said Grigol Gegelia, a member of the Lelo Party, which faces a ban. "We are losing the country." Reporting by Lucy Papachristou, Editing by Peter Graff

(source: Reuters)