Protesters want a Western way out of Russia’s past

Night after night, Georgians fill the wide central avenue that runs behind the parliament, such large numbers that there is barely room to move on the street or sidewalk.

They arrive on Rustaveli Avenue, lined with flags, the blue and gold of the EU and the red and white of the George Cross, and accuse their increasingly authoritarian government of eliminating their European future to return to their Russian neighbor’s sphere.

The ruling party, Georgian Dream, vehemently denies any link to the Kremlin, but its actions in recent days have raised big questions about the country’s future with the West.

Not only has the party presided over a bitter fallout with the EU, it has also seen the US suspend Georgia’s hard-won strategic partnership.

In a country of only 3.7 million people, these are dangerous and important times. One Georgian Dream supporter spoke of his country sitting on the edge of a precipice.

Throughout the night, horns of whistles and vuvuzelas were occasionally punctuated by protesters’ fireworks aimed at the imposing Parliament building and riot police standing guard with water cannons and tear gas.

For the first four nights, the police waited until dawn to retake the street by force. But on Monday night they advanced far ahead, pushing the protesters away.

Police counted more than 100 injuries among their own forces, while protesters in custody endured beatings and serious facial and head injuries, according to lawyers, and dozens of TV reporters were attacked.

“The scale of hunting people down and beating them up in isolation, so they have to be treated in clinics, is unprecedented here,” says Lasha Djibisashvili, a politics professor at the University of Georgia.

Georgia’s public rights defender, Levan Iseliani, says the police have engaged in “brutality” and abused their powers with impunity. Supporters of the government argue that the police have been subjected to an intolerable attack with stones and firecrackers.

This is a constitutional crisis, with no clear way out unless one side blinks first. Will the government back down or give in to police pressure and protests will take place?

“There are no negotiations,” says Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, claiming without basis that the protests were funded from abroad.

They say they will turn up every night in December until the Georgian Dream changes tack and calls new elections to erase a vote marred by a string of violations ranging from bribery to multiple voting a month ago.

Both sides accuse the other of a lack of legitimacy.

The protesters, spurred on by the pro-Western president and four opposition groups, say the government is illegitimate; “Fake elections” will keep the opposition out of parliament.

The ruling party, Georgian Dream, says it won the vote fair and square, and insists that Salome Zourabichvili, the largely ceremonial president, lacks legitimacy. Her time in office is almost over, so one wonders why she plans to maintain stability.

In February 2014, when pro-EU protesters ousted its unpopular president and Russian troops and their proxies moved in to seize parts of the country, neighboring Russia compared the events to Ukraine’s “Maidan” training a close eye.

“We are losing our country,” says Nika Gvaramia, leader of the opposition Change coalition, and Georgians face a stark choice between European Georgia or Russia.

As he spoke, protests from his party HQ were in full swing after colleagues showed him a CCTV video from inside his lobby a few days ago, showing protesters being beaten up by the police.

“We are shaking this government. Rallies can go on for as long as needed. We have no other choice. It is a liberation struggle. We know who we are fighting and that is Russia.

The words “No Russia” were daubed in large black graffiti on the front of the parliament building over the weekend, and you’ll find a similar message in varying degrees of brazenness on walls across Tbilisi.

It is a message with different meanings here.

Georgian Dream’s highly controversial laws targeting civil society and LGBT groups this year have been branded Russian-style and anti-democratic.

The president spoke of Georgian Dream’s election victory as a special Russian operation, and there was an outcry when it emerged that Alexander Malkevich, a Russian who had set up a campaign network in occupied eastern Ukraine, had been accredited to fix the vote.

But none of that proves Russian interference, even though Bidzina Ivanishvili, behind the party, made money in banking and steel, critics believe he still has connections there.

A high-ranking Georgian Dream figure told the BBC in October that Georgia had long said no to Moscow and that the “Russia card” was being used by opposition parties to attack his party.

“Knowing a bit of Georgian history … no government would be stupid enough to start thinking about it,” said Maka Bochorishvili. Russia went to war with Georgia just 16 years ago.

He has since become the foreign minister of Georgia, the new face of the country’s diplomacy.

A tense moment for Georgia and its relationship with the West came last Thursday, when the prime minister announced that “the government has decided not to put the subject of early negotiations with the European Union” on the agenda for the next four years.

Within hours, Russia’s Vladimir Putin seized on his comments.

“I admired his courage and character, which he showed while defending his point of view,” he said, stressing that Russia has no direct ties with Tbilisi.

Kobakhidze used similar Kremlin language, accusing the opposition of planning a Ukraine-style “Maidan” revolution.

However, his intention was that the Georgian police would ensure that this did not happen.

Thomas de Waal, Carnegie Europe’s Caucasus expert, believes it would be a mistake to see any kind of close friendship with Russia.

“It’s a business relationship – there’s no diplomatic relationship. Things are happening behind the scenes but they’re more afraid of Russia than they want to join Russia.

Whatever the extent of ties, Moscow is committed to prioritizing the Georgian Dream, which in the short term has usurped Georgia’s links with the EU and the US to enthusiastic pro-Western opposition.

The overnight protests are showing no sign of cooling down, with temperatures still dropping to near freezing, with no sign of relief yet.

Georgia has seen protests before, but not like this, says Lasha Djibisashvili. Public servants from all walks of life have signed letters and petitions and several ambassadors, including Georgia’s ambassador to the US, have resigned, a clear blow to the ruling party.

A long stretch of Rustaveli Avenue plays out the story in front of Tbilisi’s parliament, while protests are being felt in other towns and cities, including Batumi and Poti on the Black Sea, Zugdidi and Kutaisi in the northwest. .

On Sunday night, a large crowd of protesters formed outside the public broadcaster, demanding that the president be given more airtime than the usual pro-fare fare.

This did not happen and gradually the protesters marched into the center of the capital, stopping traffic and chanting “Georgia, Georgia”.

Nika Gwaramia and his fellow opposition leaders believe that there is a clear path to free and fair elections, not under the existing electoral commission but under the auspices of the EU and the US: “If the Georgian Dream is sure that they won the election, let’s go with a new one.”

That seems highly unlikely, as it would require an implicit admission that the original vote was unfair.

GD supporter and university lecturer Levan Giginishvili believes that a new president should be held in the US: “The best way out of this is for (Donald) Trump to come to power and then everything will change.”

But 20 January is a long way off and this tiny state in the Caucasus is not at the top of their agenda. And Georgia’s business sector will not be happy with the continued shutdown or the government’s permanent damage to relations with the West.