Page 73 - bne_April 2021_20210401

bne April 2021
Opinion 73
COMMENT:
Democracy is struggling in Georgia
bne IntelliNews
Georgia faces an internal political crisis. The arrest of the leader of the main opposition party – United National Movement (UNM) – at his party headquarters by government security forces reverberated across the democratic world. Narratively as well as purely propaganda-wise the opposition managed to gain the upper hand as the scenes
of the storming damaged the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party’s international standing.
Though it remains to be seen whether this crisis will reinvigorate support for the party among other groups of the population beyond hardcore opposition supporters, it could be argued that the opposition managed to re-invent itself and put itself again into the spotlight – not long ago the UNM was a declining political force.
For many, Georgia is in the midst of a democracy-building crisis precisely because of the situation after the 2020 parliamentary elections when the opposition refused to acknowledge the results. But the roots of the internal troubles could be more far reaching. Ultimately it could be about how detached the political elites of Georgia have become from the demands of the ordinary people.
Take the opposition, which is viewed with antipathy by wide sections of the public. A gradually decreasing number of supporters also characterises the governing party as long-term economic problems exacerbated by the pandemic constitute
a major challenge. But little has been offered over the past few years from either side. For many, the current crisis is more about a GD-UNM struggle than a struggle for democracy and the economic development of the country.
This explains the large abstention rate of voters during elections in Georgia. Large sections of the population do not see a preferred party with an appropriate programme amidst the increasingly polarised political climate.
Perhaps what Georgia lacked throughout its post-Soviet independence period was long-term policy planning to
re-boot its fragile economy, a heritage of the troubled 1990s. What it needs is for attention to be shifted away from inter- party politics towards the needs of the economically poor population.
Democracy is struggling and it is not only about whether the arrest of the opposition leader was a lawful act or even an urgently necessary move in these circumstances. We are dealing here with what the Georgian public has been accustomed to since the country regained independence
– the belief that a ruling party stands always above the law. This was the case with former presidents Eduard Shevardnadze and Mikheil Saakashvili, and this is a scourge that befell the current government, whether it wanted it or not. For ordinary citizens there has been no break in the repeated pattern of actions by Georgian political elites for the last 30 years.
But the crisis has a wider dimension. A regional outlook perhaps would shed some light. It is a region where two small and extremely fragile democracies – Armenia and Georgia
– are located. The former took a major hit last year when
its dependence on Moscow grew exponentially following Yerevan’s defeat in the Second Karabakh War. Now Russia
is more capable of backtracking the reformist agenda of
the Armenian leadership. Protests are staged – internally
the prime minister is weak and facing challenges, Russia plays a long game, it navigates and kills the last vestiges of Armenia’s independent foreign policy.
Georgia too is hit. Internal challenges have been troubling the ruling party for more than a year now. And this is
what Russia needs – internal differences in Georgia, a weakening of its international standing, hopes for Nato/EU membership dashed. In the age of reinvigorated efforts on the Trans-Atlantic partnership between the US and Europe, Washington’s larger support for Nato, and its possible enlargement into the former Soviet space, Georgia’s woes are a boon for Moscow and a propitious development for those in the West who are feeling fatigue towards EU/Nato expansion.
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