Page 51 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine September 2024

bne September 2024 Eurasia I 51
Bokuchava, however, doesn’t think this tactic by GD will come to anything.
“The Kremlin-inspired GD legislators and their patrons, and the Kremlin itself, could not predict the kind of resilience and push-back shown by Georgian civil society. ‘We will not register’, they said, ‘fine us all you want’”, Bokuchava says proudly. “The immediate result that Ivanishvili wanted, to shut down civil society organisations in the run up to the elections, including election observation organisations such as ISFED, will not be achieved.”
The UNM chair is also optimistic that potential jeopardization of the elections will be mitigated by a “strong presence” of international observation bodies
who will accompany local observers. She adds that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (in which Bokuchava is a member of the Georgian delegation) has ensured a “robust observation mission from the OSCE”.
Through a combination of cross-
party voter protection and local and international scrutiny of the election process, Bokuchava appears confident that GD can and will be prevented from seizing an illegitimate victory.
“Despite Ivanishvili’s attempts to try to steal the vote, we will make sure that the will of the Georgian people is reflected in the result. We will do everything in
our power to do so,” she declares.
The UNM chair also spoke about
the crucial task of maximising voter turnout in the autumn, explaining that the opposition needs to win by such a large margin with maximum turnout so as to preclude the government from any opportunity to skew the vote. A small advantage by the opposition
(1,2 or even 5%), and the government “will use various levers of falsification, intimidation, pressure, vote buying and voter fraud to manipulate the results”, Bokuchava explains.
She is optimistic, however, that if UNM
is able to gain the trust and support of
a large majority of the Georgian voters, then “the government will be defenceless against the will of the people”.
UNM as, firstly, trustworthy, and secondly, open and welcoming, is the image of her party Bokuchava hopes to communicate to the Georgian public.
“As the main opposition party in Georgia we most certainly exude a sense of strength, but in addition it is very important to show the public that our door remains open to new ideas and new people.”
Bokuchava, 41, highlights the importance of harnessing the new-found energy of young people in particular, describing Georgian youth as an “invincible force” who, in the recent foreign agent law
protests, “set the political agenda of the day”, to the great surprise of both Georgian Dream and the opposition.
“We must make sure we convert this energy and this conviction of victory into political energy and electoral processes,” says Bokuchava, adding that she, among other party leaders, bears a responsibility to keep political nihilism at bay by opening her party to youth. “We need to signal to them that they have a stake”, said the UNM chair, “the future of Georgia is theirs”.
Whilst Bokuchava remains optimistic that an opposition victory can and will be achieved in October, she cannot deny that the idea of a fourth GD
term is a real danger. She mentions
the consolidation of power and the increasing move towards autocracy
as existing symptoms of the ruling party regime, and predicts “further crackdowns on the opposition, the stifling of critical voices, attempts to entirely silence critical media and civil society organisations, squashing and squandering any chance of Georgia ever advancing on the European path”.
“A GD victory is not a prospect I even want to entertain,” says Bokuchava. “We must jump on the EU bandwagon now, while we can, whilst the window is open, or it will close, and this would be a historic loss for our country which we just cannot afford.”
Russia needs Central Asian migrants to do the work that there aren’t Russians to do – but it’s driving them out
bne IntelliNews
It’s a puzzling reality, but one that’s become increasingly undeniable
in recent months – Russia,
despite acute labour shortages that even threaten to undermine its “war economy” factories, is driving away the
valuable resource that is Central Asian migrants.
A watershed moment came with the Crocus City Hall Islamist terrorist atrocity in March that was allegedly committed
by four Tajik gunmen. After that, reason appeared to go out the window as a wave of xenophobia took over.
Even before Crocus – as indicated by a Bruce Pannier piece for bne IntelliNews
www.bne.eu