By CARLOS SAPIR
The bourgeois government of the country Georgia faces a crisis of legitimacy. Caught in the middle of growing conflict between imperialist powers, parliamentary elections have ended with pro-EU politicians and election officials denouncing the process as a sham. Mass protests have broken out as student organizations have gone on strike, and even some universities and civil society institutions have withdrawn their support from the new government. While EU integration will almost certainly mean the further subjugation of Georgia’s economic and political life to the whims of the EU’s bourgeoisie, the prospects for Georgian workers under Georgian Dream’s rule are little better, and it is right for them to rebel against a capitalist regime that has imposed austerity and treated community environmentalist groups like domestic terrorists.
What happened in the election?
Official election results published by the Central Election Commission (CEC) in late October give the ruling Georgian Dream party 54.8% of the vote, with the rest divided between various coalitions of pro-EU parties that make up an opposition. These results would represent a small decline in GD’s share of government, but still a ruling majority in Parliament. Opposition politicians, including the sitting president, Salome Zourabichvili, have claimed that these results are rigged, citing reports from European election observers that attested evidence of ballot stuffing and intimidation. Tbilisi courts dismissed lawsuits challenging the results as groundless, and the CEC moved to officially certify the results on Nov. 19. A member of an opposition party on the CEC, however, denounced the results and doused the chair of the commission with black paint.
Throughout this process, there have been significant demonstrations called by both the opposition parties and grassroots organizations. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets, strikes broke out at universities, and were met with violent police repression. This simmering situation exploded following a series of events on Nov. 28. On the same day, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze convened his new government, the EU approved a resolution to demand an investigation into the Georgian election, and Kobakhidze unilaterally announced that Georgian accession into the EU was to be halted until 2028, with similar bans on EU funding for the government, accusing the EU of blackmail against Georgia. While the Georgian opposition has long accused Georgian Dream of opposing accession into the EU, this is the first time that GD has taken such an overtly anti-EU position, having officially supported EU integration for over a decade.
In response to these announcements, a new wave of protests, strikes, and resignations rocked Georgia. Strikes spread to grade schools, several universities closed outright, and hundreds of government employees and officials have resigned. Meanwhile, the police response has become more violent, with 224 arrested as unarmed protesters set off fireworks and dodged tear gas and riot police.
What happened to Georgian Dream?
Once upon a time (2012, to be precise), it was Georgian Dream that was calling for street protests and democracy. At the time, Georgian Dream was affiliated with the pro-EU, center-left “Party of European Socialists,” together with the German SDP and the British Labour Party, and it railed against the corruption and subservience of Prime Minister Mikheil Saakashvili, affiliated with the UNM, which now leads the opposition. With vague gestures towards reform, the party promised EU and NATO integration, peaceful detente with Russia, and a heavily privatized market economy.
As we noted in June of this year, Georgian Dream’s political shift has partly come in response to renewed imperialist competition in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leading imperialist powers—and particularly China and the EU—to try to secure new east-west trade routes through the Caucasus. In these circumstances, GD has pivoted away from seeking European integration and has sought out more Chinese and Russian backing. Throughout this process, the party has remained firmly under the control of its founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire who directly owns a substantial portion of Georgia’s economy. The pivot has also been accompanied by a reactionary turn on questions of oppression: Following the electoral successes of far-right figures in the European Parliament and member states, GD hitched its wagon to the horses of social conservatism and Queerphobia; would-be democrats and reformers are no longer welcome in GD.
The only consistent element of GD’s political approach is its defense of capitalist interests, especially those that align with Ivanishvili. Whether it pivots to the EU, to Russia, or attempts to simply consolidate its own grip over society, it will do so by selling out Georgian workers and scapegoating the oppressed.
Meanwhile, in Abkhazia
While unrest swept Georgia throughout November, anti-government protests also took place in Abkhazia, protesting pro-Russian policies approved by the breakaway region’s president, Aslan Bzhania. Bzhania was forced to resign by opposition protests that seized bridges, government buildings, and drove a truck through the gates of the presidential palace. While protesters did not call for Abkhazia to cut ties with Russia (which has military bases on Abkhazian territory and is its main economic tie to the outside world) or for reintegration with Georgia, they denounced the adoption of agreements that would pave the way for wealthy Russians to purchase real estate.
Russian dominion over Abkhazia (and South Ossetia), as well as popular discontent with it, is particularly significant in a context where the Georgian Dream government appears to be trying to reach some form of rapprochement and reintegration with the governments of the breakaway regions under the aegis of Russia’s blessing. Representatives from Abkhazia are expected to participate in the formal election of Georgia’s president in December, as part of an electoral college that otherwise largely consists of MPs and other representatives of territories. The bourgeois governments of Georgia and its breakaway regions will try to haggle their subjugation to one imperialist power or another; no autonomy or freedom can be expected for as long as Georgia and its regions are led by bourgeois parties trying to grift their way into imperialism’s good graces.
The EU does not defend democracy and Russia does not provide security
The EU’s actions have not helped the cause of democracy in Georgia, they have set it back by subordinating the question of democracy in Georgia to accession into the EU. EU integration will mean the increased domination of Georgian political and economic life by unaccountable imperialist overlords, as has occurred with Greece, Portugal, and other small Eurozone economies. The EU cannot pretend to be a neutral observer in global politics. But the total rebuffing of calls for accountability and transparency by the Georgian government is an equal admission of guilt; it is clear that Georgians already live in a political system where they do not have a voice and where decisions are made by unaccountable technocrats.
The situation in Georgia is one of acute political crisis for its ruling class: The pro-EU and pro-U.S. faction of the bourgeoisie has decided that it will rather risk a constitutional crisis, an interruption of the capitalist economy, and potential foreign intervention than to allow its rival, relatively pro-Russian and pro-Chinese faction to consolidate power. This faction has similarly decided that it would rather risk the same crisis than loosen its grip over political power. In such a situation, trade unions, social movements, and socialists cannot just sit on the sidelines and let the capitalists decide the fate of the country. All who side with true democracy, working-class power, and liberation need to support mass protests and articulate slogans that demand not only democratic accountability but also international independence and economic relief for the masses.
Such movements are not foreign or extinct in Georgia. Recent protests have challenged the devastation caused by U.S.-owned Georgian Manganese, and thousands mobilized in 2021 to stop the construction of the Norwegian-Turkish-backed Namakhvani Hydropower Plant, which would have had devastating environmental circumstances and sold off energy at humiliating rates. Striking workers have fought for their dignity against the designs of European companies while anti-eviction organizers fight against the UK-owned Bank of Georgia. Mobilizing and organizing such forces into a united struggle for democracy and against austerity provides the best opportunity for challenging the capitalist status quo in Georgia in over a decade. The capitalists have fallen out with each other and called the legitimacy of the existing order to question; now is the time to strike.
