Georgia’s Political Crisis Puts Its Democratic Future in Doubt

Paul Stronski

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In late February, police raided the party headquarters of the opposition United National Movement in Tbilisi, Georgia, to arrest its chairman, Nika Melia. The raid and arrest, which were live-streamed and video-recorded by observers, have thrown the country deep into political crisis. Given Melia’s longstanding role as a thorn in the side of the ruling Georgian Dream party, his detention appears to be a politically motivated show of force to intimidate the government’s critics. The move provoked outrage in Georgia, the European Union and the United States, where members of the U.S. Congress and human rights organizations have expressed concern.

The incident raises clear questions about Georgia’s democratic trajectory. For almost two decades, the former Soviet republic has been lauded as one of the region’s shining star democracies. However, a closer look at political developments since its 2003 “Rose Revolution” reveals repeated swings between democratic promise and authoritarian backsliding.

The country is now experiencing yet another one of those swings. Melia’s arrest could also complicate President Joe Biden’s renewed efforts to prioritize human rights in U.S. foreign policy, as Georgia normally would be a natural partner for promoting political reform and a likely participant in the administration’s anticipated democracy summit.

The enmity between the opposition United National Movement, or UNM, and Georgia Dream, or GD, is rooted in the mutual animosity between their respective founders: former President Mikheil Saakashvili for the UNM, and the eccentric billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili for GD. A 2012 prison scandal highlighted the extrajudicial excesses of Saakashvili’s security services, turning the public against the UNM and helping GD oust the UNM at the ballot box that year. Both men, however, are outsized personalities who have lorded over Georgian politics for years. Both have been reticent to give up the perks of power—or even admit their past mistakes.

Ivanishvili no longer enjoys any formal role in the party he founded or the government it leads. But he remains GD’s main benefactor and has installed loyalists into key government positions, making him a powerful behind-the-scenes decisionmaker. Saakashvili, now in exile, has worked with his allies to try and tarnish Ivanishvili and GD’s reputation, labeling the latter as a pro-Russian party eager to steer Georgia away from its pro-Western trajectory. Ivanishvili’s ties to Russia, where he made his money in the 1990s, and GD’s efforts to improve the country’s tense relations with Moscow helped this narrative take root. The reality, however, is far more nuanced. What is clear is that the bad blood between the two men and their political factions runs deep.

Friction between the government, the UNM and other opposition forces rose in the run-up to the first round of the October 2020 parliamentary elections, which were won by GD. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe deemed those polls to be generally fair, although the COVID-19 pandemic complicated the organization’s efforts to get actual observers on the ground. A local election-monitoring NGO, however, noted numerous electoral and voting irregularities, problems that have plagued Georgian politics for decades.

The recent events in Georgia have damaged the country’s reputation in the West, causing some of its most vocal backers in Europe and the U.S. to question its democratic resolve.

A broad coalition of opposition forces quickly cried foul and took to the streets. They decided to forego participating in the subsequent second-round runoffs and then refused to take seats they had won outright in the first round, a decision that essentially transformed Parliament into a rubber stamp for the ruling party. By boycotting the body, the opposition also denied itself a place in a democratic institution where it could voice concerns, propose policies and use legislative means to try to check government excesses, leaving protest as its only real venue for dissent. This type of “democracy of the street” is not a recipe for stability, but it is something Georgia has witnessed before.

Melia’s arrest, officially for violating bail on previous protest-related charges, came on the heels of the surprise Feb. 18 resignation of Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, who claimed to have objected to Melia’s impending detention and supported a more conciliatory approach to resolving the country’s election-related stalemate. Once an Ivanishvili ally, Gakharia has now joined a long list of former high-ranking GD officials who have broken ranks with the billionaire. He has since been replaced by a harder-line prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, who was quickly approved by the GD-controlled Parliament.

The episode could be an inflection point for Georgian politics. Gakharia’s resignation exposed clear rifts in the GD, as did the Feb. 24 resignation of the head of the Government Administration, the bureaucratic arm of the executive. Meanwhile, Melia’s detention, which has led to large-scale protests in Tbilisi, could turn greater focus onto the next generation of UNM leaders, who might be able to reinvent the party. The UNM and Saakashvili are well regarded in the West for their anti-corruption and governance reforms, as well as their efforts to orient the country firmly toward Europe. Yet, the UNM has a mixed reputation at home, in large part because Saakashvili increased control over the media, politicized the judiciary and security services, and cracked down on the opposition—all complaints voiced today by the UNM and other opposition parties against GD.

However, the gamesmanship between the country’s political forces does little to address the deep-seated problems that Georgian citizens have faced for years. The population remains oriented toward the West, yet its interest in elections is declining, as is popular faith in the main political parties and politicians. As elites jockey for power, there is a notable lack of policy discussions about the country’s pressing problems: poverty, unemployment, territorial insecurity or the COVID-19 pandemic, with all its ripple effects. In short, Georgians are poorly served by their politicians.

Russia—Georgia’s main adversary as well as the patron and occupier of its two separatist regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia—has long tried to tarnish the image of bottom-up democratic change. The turmoil in Georgia is yet one more example that Russia can use to highlight its claim that political reform and a pluralist political system do not necessarily bring stability or address long-standing socio-economic problems. This message sells well in many parts of Eurasia, including among some conservative Georgians.

The recent events in Georgia also damage the country’s reputation in the West, causing some of its most vocal backers in Europe and the United States to question its democratic resolve. This will complicate Georgia’s continued integration into Western economic, security and political structures—a development that Moscow will welcome given its long-standing opposition to that Westward shift. A bipartisan group of Georgia-friendly U.S. senators and congressional representatives issued an unprecedentedly sharp criticism of the Georgian government’s recent action on Feb. 23, calling Melia’s arrest “profoundly troubling.” Their statement raises questions about whether Georgia, or at least the Georgian government, will continue to get a blank check from the U.S., its main international backer and essential provider of economic, security and political assistance. Sen. Bob Menendez, the powerful chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and seven of his counterparts from European legislatures, condemned the raid in a Feb. 26 joint statement that starkly warned of the “fragility of democracy and freedom in Georgia.”

Finally, Georgia’s latest upheaval comes at an inopportune time for the Biden administration. The entire South Caucasus region is in crisis given the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the resulting political instability in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. Yet, the Biden administration’s foreign policy structure is not yet fully staffed to deal with the region’s growing problems, while Washington already has a long list of pressing issues closer to home. Today, it remains unclear whether the U.S. can provide Georgia with the high-level attention it needs to get back on the democratic track—and whether the resolve for doing so currently exists in Tbilisi.