Page 6 - Caucasus Outlook 2025

1.0 Political outlook 1.1 Politics – Georgia
Protests in Georgia continue into the new year after the ruling Georgian Dream party announced on November 28, 2024, that the country would be suspending its EU membership bid until 2028, marking a dramatic departure from Georgia’s decades-long pro-EU foreign policy, and a breach of the country’s constitution, in which Euro-Atlantic integration is enshrined.
GD’s EU accession u-turn exacerbated what was already a state of political crisis in the country. In October 2024 GD claimed 54% of the vote in parliamentary elections amid widespread allegations of vote rigging and electoral violations by local and international observers. Georgia’s pro-Western opposition forces and former president, GD critic Salome Zourabichvili, reject the legitimacy of the election results and GD’s newly formed government.
Zourabichvili declared GD rigged the October vote with the help of a “Russian special operation”, whilst all four of the opposition blocs refused to take their seats in parliament.
Some countries, including Russia, Azerbaijan and Hungary, congratulated the new GD government on their win. Meanwhile the European Parliament, among other Western bodies and leaders, rejected the result and called for a rerun, citing “significant irregularities”.
Civil unrest ensued following the October vote; Georgians took to the streets demanding a new round of elections under international supervision. From November 28, these demonstrations took on an existential dimension: Georgians were now protesting against what they saw as the theft of their country’s European future by a pro-Russian government.
Peaceful crowds which gathered nightly outside the Georgian Parliament on Tbilisi’s Rustaveli avenue were met with brutal police violence, water cannons and tear gas, and some protesters shot fireworks towards law enforcement cordons in response. Hundreds were detained and suffered brutal mistreatment while in police custody, and their immediate release emerged as a second demand of Georgian protesters.
On December 14, 2024, an electoral council comprised nearly entirely of GD officials selected Mikheil Kavelashvili – an anti-Western,
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