The ruling party in Georgia, the former Soviet republic of the South Caucasus, called on its supporters to demonstrate on Monday April 29 to support its controversial bill on “foreign agents”, adopted at first reading on April 17 despite the indignation of the population and the condemnations of Westerners. Opponents of the text, abandoned a year earlier under pressure and modeled on a Russian law aimed at silencing independent media and civil society, called for demonstrations the same day.
On Thursday April 25, the European Parliament also condemned the bill and called for sanctions against the founder of the ruling party, the oligarch and former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili. Georgian political analyst and former education minister in 2008, Ghia Nodia, professor at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, deciphers the government’s strategy and says “pessimistic”.
Why did the ruling Georgian Dream party choose to reintroduce the draft law on foreign agents, abandoned under popular and international pressure in March 2023?
There are several hypotheses. The legislative elections will be held in October. However, elections can be a difficult moment for those in power, because there can be accusations of fraud and demonstrations. One of the objectives is therefore to silence the media and civil society before the election.
According to another theory, Georgian Dream, whose popularity is declining, wants to provoke a battle with the opposition, very weakened, to defeat it decisively even before the election. These two theories are not incompatible.
Isn’t this strategy risky for the ruling party?
Yes, it is a very risky bet for Bidzina Ivanishvili, who runs the country from the shadows. The most optimistic think that he made a mistake, that he galvanized the population against him, including those who, among his supporters, are still pro-European.
Was he too confident? He is a very secretive man but, like Vladimir Putin, he is paranoid and convinced that the opposition and civil society are fomenting, with the support of the West, the organization of a “Maidan” [du nom de la révolution proeuropéenne en Ukraine à l’hiver 2013-2014, qui a chassé le président prorusse Viktor Ianoukovitch]. He is convinced that people want to get rid of him and wants to do everything to prevent that.
Bidzina Ivanishvili cannot be openly pro-Russian, because that would be too unpopular [la Russie est perçue comme une ennemie par la population, traumatisée par la guerre en 2008 avec Moscou, dont les troupes occupent aujourd’hui 20 % du territoire géorgien]. So officially, Georgian Dream, of which he is the founder, continues to say that it is pro-European, while treating Westerners as enemies.
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