Georgia one step away from one-party dictatorship

A little over a year ago, a diverse array of opposition coalitions vied for votes in Georgia’s parliament, four of which won seats. Today, of their eight main leaders, all but one are in prison, in exile, or facing criminal charges. The ruling party is seeking to outlaw the three main opposition groups altogether.

The slide into a one-party system has shocked many in this small South Caucasus country of 3,7 million. In the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia appeared to be a young, emerging democracy, on a fast track toward the EU and away from Russia's sphere of influence.

However, it is now further from the West than at almost any point in its post-Soviet history, according to an assessment from Brussels, which described its democratic institutions as crippled and its courts as subordinate to the state.

This month, the EU said in a report that Georgia is now “only formally” a candidate for membership. The EU ambassador in Tbilisi said that Georgia is no longer on track to join the bloc at all.

Veterans of Georgian politics and diplomacy, who spoke to Reuters about the events of recent months, said Georgia appeared to be approaching a line beyond which democracy would find it difficult to recover.

“We are five minutes away from a one-party dictatorship,” said Sergi Kapanadze, a former deputy foreign minister and deputy speaker of parliament until 2020.

Democratization means that at some point you will lose power.

Nataliya Sabanadze, Tbilisi's ambassador to the EU until 2021, said that during decades of often bitter internal political conflicts, there was always a consensus that Georgia belonged to the West. That consensus has now disappeared.

“They know that democratization, which the EU demands, means accepting that at some point you will lose power,” she said of the ruling Georgian Dream party. “They don’t want that. And they are essentially building a full-blown authoritarian regime.”

The ruling Georgian Dream party claims to be protecting the country from opposition figures who are trying to seize power and provoke a catastrophic war with Russia.

It's a fear that became palpable after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which stirred memories in Georgia of Russian tanks rolling into the outskirts of Tbilisi in 2008 in a humiliating defeat by Moscow during a short war.

“Georgia is an island of peace in a very difficult geopolitical environment,” said Nino Tsilozani, a ruling party lawmaker and deputy speaker of parliament. “What investors and businesses need is stability.”

She accused jailed opposition politicians of trying to plan a coup, accusations that opposition parties reject as fabricated to justify the crackdown.

Opponents describe Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire, as the author of an authoritarian turn. Some accuse him of being in cahoots with Russia, where he made his fortune in the 1990s.

Gia Hukashvili, who helped launch the party as Ivanishvili’s chief political advisor before parting ways with him in 2013, said it was wrong to view his former boss as subservient to Moscow. On the contrary, Ivanishvili only sees “a convergence of interests” between the countries, he said.

"He understands that, in this ocean of sharks, he needs an older brother. Who is the older brother? It can only be Russia," said Hukashvili.

The economy is turning to Russia and China

With a strategically important position on the Black Sea, in a region crisscrossed by oil and gas pipelines, Georgia could, in theory, play a major role in the West's effort to diversify energy and trade routes away from Russia.

After emerging from the ethnic conflicts and economic collapse that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Georgia experienced rapid growth fueled by investor-friendly policies that accompanied its political turn toward the West.

That openness has now quickly reversed: foreign direct investment has fallen over the past two years to levels last seen in the early 2000s.

Growth has held up, however, thanks to an influx of Russian companies and IT workers into Georgia since the war in Ukraine began, which has proven to be a boost to the economy. The World Bank forecasts that Georgia's GDP will grow 7% this year, after 9,4% last year.

But construction of the deep-water port on the Black Sea - a potentially key transit hub connecting Asia and Europe - has largely stalled since a consortium led by Western companies was kicked out of the project. A Chinese company was subsequently awarded the contract, but progress on construction has been minimal.

Meanwhile, Georgia now imports about 45% of its oil from Russia, up from just 8% in 2012, even though Tbilisi and Moscow do not have diplomatic relations.

Ian Kelly, a former US ambassador to Georgia, said the West could have done more to build ties with Tbilisi.

“We are missing an opportunity,” he said. “Georgia has opened the door to Russia and China.”

Rapid chess

In recent weeks, the Georgian Dream party has taken a series of measures that appear to be an attempt to root out the few remaining political dissenters.

An upcoming lawsuit before the Constitutional Court is set to ban the three main opposition parties, while new criminal indictments against nine key opposition figures - including jailed former president Mikheil Saakashvili - almost certainly mean that any potential challenger will remain behind bars for years.

Recently, repression has also been directed at people close to the ruling party itself, with new criminal charges being filed even against senior ministers and former closest allies of Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili.

The authorities are acting so quickly that Kapanadze, a former deputy speaker of parliament, compared the situation to “quick-move chess,” in which the opposition tries to avoid checkmate by hoping that the authorities will make a tactical mistake in their haste.

Arrests at nighttime anti-government protests outside parliament have left political activists in a state of fear, despair and resignation. Dozens of them languish in prison or have been fined for blocking roads.

“Georgia has simply disappeared, not only from the European scene, but also from the global one,” said Grigol Gegelia of the Lelo party, which is facing a ban. “We are losing our country,” he said.

Prepared by: NB